It will not be Mr Hammond who stumps up for the increased minimum wage either, but employers. These are either going to be very cheap houses or extra money will have to be found from somewhere. No doubt some of them will be a help, especially the bump in the minimum wage and the slightly more generous treatment of universal credit claimants. Given his ambition to balance the budget (by some as yet unspecified date), Mr Hammond is unlikely to drop any of those plans. If Mr Hammond were serious about evening up the UK’s economy, he would try to tackle that giant gap in wealth.

Source: The Guardian November 23, 2016 00:29 UTC