Osborne’s Budget: The National Living Wage

Osborne’s Budget: The National Living Wage

Osborne’s Emergency Budget has called for the implementation of a National Living Wage. This would increase wages from the current rate of £6.50 an hour, up to £7.20 by April 2016, and then further increasing to £9 by 2020. Those on the Minimum Wage would stand to see their salaries increase by an estimated £4 000 p.a. Furthermore, 2.5 million employees are expected to see their salaries increase by £5 000 by 2020 as a result of this National Living Wage.

Mobile Phones promoting growth for Africa!

Mobile Phones promoting growth for Africa!

With so many young people procrastinating on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, the claim that mobile phones could help to promote growth in Africa seems highly implausible. If anything, people would be distracted, much like the youth of developed nations today, and growth could in fact decline!

Many in Africa are excluded from accessing banks. This is mainly due to the fact that banks are located in towns and cities, yet most of Africa’s population live in rural areas. A lack of adequate infrastructure hinders the movement of these peoples to cities to take out loans and start saving. Indeed, this is compounded by a high incidence of financial illiteracy. Moreover, there is the further disincentive of using financial institutions because the minimum deposit in most areas is 50pc of per capita GDP, and so the very poor are excluded from using these facilities.

Productivity Puzzle

The Productivity Puzzle 

A recent OECD report has revealed that Britain’s real GDP growth is stronger than the OECD’s average, with unemployment also only 6pc. This has all helped to increase business and consumer confidence. However, since the ‘Great Recession’, the UK has failed to increase its productivity, with the productivity gap compared with other G7 economies increasing, and it is currently at its largest since 1992. On the other hand, the USA’s productivity is 9pc higher than its pre-crisis levels and France too has increased its productivity by 2pc since 2008.