Nearly 100,000 frontline care workers were paid below the London Living Wage last year, according to a report.
The workers accounted for nearly two out of three of the employees in residential homes in the capital or providing care to elderly or disabled people in their homes, day or community centres.
The study by the Resolution Foundation found the typical wage for a care job in London was £8 an hour during 2013-14.
The London Living Wage rose from £8.55 to £8.80 halfway through the period and is now £9.15, compared with the national minimum wage of £6.50. “If we want a social care system that treats those receiving care with dignity, then we urgently need to invest more in the workers who staff it,” said Laura Gardiner, of the Resolution Foundation. “Paying the Living Wage is an essential first step.”
The report stated that many care staff in London would have been more than £1,100 better off last year if they had been paid the Living Wage, even after accounting for higher taxes and lower in-work benefits.
It said that paying the Living Wage to the care workforce would have cost employers an extra £390 million, including £230 million for services commissioned by local authorities.
