Living Wage Foundation

The Living Wage Foundation is an campaigning organisation in the United Kingdom which aims to persuade employers to pay a Living Wage, an independently-calculated recommended minimum wage to cover workers' basic needs. The organisation was established in 2011, publishes an annual Living Wage figure and accredits employers who pay the wage. From November 2016 the Living Wage rate is £8.45 per hour outside London and £9.75 per hour within London.

The Living Wage Foundation grew out of the Living Wage Campaign which originated in London. The campaign was launched in 2001 by members of London Citizens, a community organisation which subsequently developed into the nationwide community organising institution Citizens UK. The Living Wage Campaign called for every worker in the country to earn enough to provide their family with the essentials of life. It engaged in a series of Living Wage campaigns and in 2005 the Greater London Authority established the Living Wage Unit to calculate the London Living Wage, although the authority had no power to enforce it. The London Living Wage was developed in 2008 when Trust for London awarded a grant of over £1 million for campaigning, research and an employer accreditation scheme. The Living Wage campaign subsequently grew into a national movement with local campaigns across the UK. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation funded the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) at Loughborough University to calculate the Minimum Income Standard (MIS), a UK-wide figure taking an average from across the whole country and independent of the higher living costs in London. In 2011 the CRSP used the MIS as the basis for developing a standard model for setting the UK Living Wage outside of London and other cities around the UK began to adopt the campaign. As a result of the campaign’s success, Citizens UK set up the Living Wage Foundation and the Living Wage Employer mark in 2011 to provide companies with intelligence and accreditation. The Living Wage Foundation argues that paying a Living wage is not merely ethical, but also constitutes business best practice and improves productivity.

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