Today, the establishment offers us ‘The Minimum Wage’ and ‘The Living Wage’.
However, neither the Minimum Wage nor the Living Wage are genuinely representative of what it costs a single person to live independently, without having to rely upon Benefits or Welfare, Charity such as Food Banks, or going into Debt of some kind, in order to meet the real Cost of Living or threshold for independent living.
The reality that government subsidises low wages through income support, housing benefits, tax relief is overlooked by many, because the ‘official’ or ‘establishment’ narrative is that if you received the Minimum Wage or its equivalent, you have enough money to live.
Sadly, the many truths that surround life experience where there is lack, reliance upon others and a culture that looks down upon anyone who needs financial help in ways that too often suggest guilt is overlooked by the very people who should know better.
Every Person should have the ability to live and support themselves independently in the lowest paid work, irrespective of background, qualifications, experience or any factor that could be used to excuse some form of prejudice on the part of others.
Creating and implementing A Basic Living Standard would provide an equal financial or material footing for Every Person is both a necessary and required foundation for the Just, Balanced and Fair society, that we all deserve.
The Basic Living Standard
“Adults, working a full working week in any job at any level, must be able to feed, house, clothe and provide adequately for their own transport needs, whilst providing basic necessities such as communication themselves, without the need for credit, loans, benefits or third-party support of any kind.”
To work effectively and as it should, The Basic Living Standard would become the key requirement of all business and economic activities.
Every economic activity and transaction would be made and progressed with The Basic Living Standard in mind and no economic activity would exist that does not place People and the impact and consequence to People at its core.
The Basic Living Standard will help flip the value set across society and address every wider social problem that society faces, leaving the Public Sector to take care of those who have genuine problems that have not been caused by societal conditioning or environmental factors, as it always should.
The Basic Living Standard could either be adopted as a voluntary change, or as the way to move forward, should the unthinkable happen and we experience some kind of system collapse, where a new form of governance is finally accepted as being essential for change.
Adam Tugwell 