Low-paid and exploited care workers are living in poverty, TUC finds

Chronic underinvestment, exploitation and low pay are leading to widespread poverty among workers in the care sector, according to damning research from the Trades Union Congress.

- Alexandra Topping

As it publishes its first workforce blueprint for the care economy, the TUC argues that the "Cinderella sectors" of social care and childcare need urgent investment to head off a demographic timebomb.

Across the UK, care workers are earning below the real living wage £10.90 an hour outside London and £11.95 in the capital - while more than a quarter of children with a parent working in social care are growing up in poverty, according to the TUC research.

The TUC's strategy for the care workforce report found: Sixty-two per cent of childcare workers and social care workers earn less than the real living wage.

Social care workers earn only about 65% of the median salary for all employees (£21,500 a year compared with £33,000).

Childcare workers earn only 56% of the median salary for all employees (£18,400).