Minimum & Living Wage Changes for April 2024

If you’re a worker, you must be paid a minimum wage for your age. Here are two types of wages you must be certain about. The minimum and living wage changes for 2024 are here. These two are the National Living Wage (NLW) and the National Minimum Wage (NMW).

The age threshold has been reduced since 1st April 2024. An increase can also be seen in other annual stuff. Let’s get into the details of wage changes and other pre-requisites.

What’s the National Living Wage?

The National Living Wage is a statutory wage payable to workers above the age of 25 or above. NLW announced a reduction in the age threshold. You must make sure to pay it to workers at that age above 23. 

What’s the National Minimum Wage?

The National Minimum Wage is paid to workers who are below the age of NLW requirement. Before 1st April 2024, NMW was highly relevant to workers above school leaving age. People under the age of 23 need to be paid NMW.

This also includes some students over the school leaving age. Let’s understand who qualifies for NMW first People with age 

• 16 and 17.
• 21 and 22.
• 18 to 20 years old.

Let’s Understand the Apprentices

It’s important to note that there’s a separate NMW rate for all the apprentices. People under the age of 19 qualify for it. You also need to know about separate NMW rates for apprentices.

Let’s Figure Out Accommodation Offset

If you’re an employer, and you’re providing your employee with accommodation, you can allow a lower minimum wage for a worker’s age. Let’s say you’re providing accommodation for a full day, it’s important to note that the daily accommodation offset rate is deducted for each day.

Let’s take the following consideration into account:

NLW: Workers Aged 21 and More	NMW: Workers aged 21 and 22	NMW: Workers aged 18 to 20	NMW: Workers aged 16 and 17	NMW: Apprentice rate	Accommodation offset
£12.21 per hour	£12.21 per hour	£10.00 per hour	£7.55 per hour	£7.55 per hours	£10.66 per day £74.62 per week

 How to Check if You’re Paying the Correct Rates

If you’re an employer, you need to make sure that you’re paying workers on the NLW or NMW from 1st April. You also need to make sure that your rates are in line with the new rates.

From 1st April, these will include workers falling in the age bracket of 23 and 24 years. 

Make sure that you keep checking on the updates of wage changes. These rates keep on fluctuating, so its always a good idea to keep track of everything through the website or other channels.

Disclaimer: All the information provided in this article on Minimum and Living Wage Changes, including all the texts and graphics, is general in nature. It does not intend to disregard any of the professional advice.