AN organisation which supports people who face dramatic changes in their circumstances has welcomed today’s rise in the National Minimum Wage but is “disappointed” by what it calls “a modest increase”.

Rob Tolan, head of policy at Elizabeth Finn Care, said 7p an hour was “hardly going to help the lowest paid workers pay their bills”.

From today, an employee earning the minimum wage, working full-time, will earn around £11,500 a year, although research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation states that a single person living in council housing needs £13,400 a year to afford a basic but acceptable standard of living.

Mr Tolan said: “The CBI has said that the moderate increase recognises that businesses are struggling. Times are, indeed, tough and as a charity that helps people who are experiencing financial difficulty, we are aware of this as much as anyone.

“But it is precisely because circumstances have worsened for a majority - recent research by us showed that 55 per cent of UK workers had experienced a forced change in their working conditions in the last six months - that we feel that this pay settlement does not go far enough.

“It is, of course, those on the minimum wage who have the greatest difficulties meeting higher outgoings for rents, food, energy and transport.

“Moreover, the argument that rapidly-reduced inflation rates are a justification for keeping the minimum wage low is fundamentally flawed, since rises in utilities and transport costs have more or less defied inflationary considerations.

“Similarly, a fall in interest rates does not necessarily decrease the burden on the poorest. Most people earning a minimum wage will not have a mortgage, so reductions won’t have benefited them nearly as much as the better off.

“Yet again it seems, those who did least to cause this crisis in the economy are bearing the brunt of its repercussions.”