Introduction

The Australian Council of Trade Unions submits that the Fair Work Commission Annual Wage Review should increase the National Minimum Wage and Award Wages by 7% from 1 July 2023. 

This rise would provide urgently needed cost of living relief for an estimated 2.67 million employees, many of them low paid, and all of them struggling to keep their head above water.

The claim would help workers with meeting the current level of inflation, which is between 7.4% on the quarterly CPI measure, and now 6.8% on the montly CPI measure for February 2023.

If inflation drops further, as it seem to be, this claim would then also begin to address the record deep cuts to the real wages that low paid workers have suffered over the past two years.

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