{"id":250709,"date":"2025-03-03T12:29:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T12:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/03\/sick-pay-low-paid-workers-to-get-80-of-salary-when-ill\/"},"modified":"2025-03-03T12:29:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T12:29:06","slug":"sick-pay-low-paid-workers-to-get-80-of-salary-when-ill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/03\/sick-pay-low-paid-workers-to-get-80-of-salary-when-ill\/","title":{"rendered":"Sick pay: Low paid workers to get 80% of salary when ill"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/4696\/live\/08890700-f81e-11ef-8dde-aff9d405c81c.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Sick pay: Low paid workers to get 80% of salary when ill\" title=\"Sick pay: Low paid workers to get 80% of salary when ill\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">More than one million low-paid workers in the UK are to be entitled to 80% of their weekly salary as sick pay from the first day of illness, under government plans.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">At the moment, UK workers earning less than \u00a3123 a week are not entitled to any statutory sick pay.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">&#8220;No one should ever have to choose between their health and earning a living, which is why we are making this landmark change,&#8221; said Liz Kendall, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">Unions called for the rate of sick pay to be increased in the future.<!-- --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">&#8220;The new rate is good for workers and fair on businesses as part our plan to boost rights and make work pay, while delivering our plan for change,&#8221; Kendall said.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">However, some groups are asking the government to set sick pay for the lowest paid workers at no less than 95% of their weekly pay.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: &#8220;This shouldn&#8217;t be the end of the story.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">&#8220;We urge ministers in future to raise the replacement rate for the lowest earners beyond 80% and undertake a wider review of the statutory sick pay rate.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">The government says the changes will mean about 1.3 million people on low wages who fall ill will receive either 80% of their average weekly earnings or the current rate of Statutory Sick Pay which is \u00a3118.75 per week \u2013 whichever is lowest.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">The move is part of a number of updates to the Employment Rights Bill expected to be announced on Tuesday, and aims to  keep more people off benefits and boost living standards. <!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">However, the planned increase in employment rights, together with the rising minmum wage and hike in employers&#8217; National Insurance, has led to criticism from many businesses, who say it will hit growth and employment.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">At the weekend it emerged that the government would not be including the &#8220;right to switch off&#8221; for workers in the bill.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">This measure had been proposed to stop employers contacting staff out-of-hours on phones, emails and texts.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fezwLZ\">A government source told the Sunday Times that: &#8220;The right to switch off is dead. We have to lower business compliance costs as much as possible.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cx28qw46p6yo\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than one million low-paid workers in the UK are to be entitled to 80% of their weekly salary as sick pay from the first day of illness, under government plans. At the moment, UK workers earning less than \u00a3123 a week are not entitled to any statutory sick pay. &#8220;No one should ever have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/4696\/live\/08890700-f81e-11ef-8dde-aff9d405c81c.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[604],"tags":[23807,6122,795,2898,11324,2252],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":250711,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250709\/revisions\/250711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}