THE UK Living Wage has been raised by 20p to £7.85 an hour. For a 40-hour week that’s an extra £8 and roughly £32 a month.

With that bit of extra in my wage packet I could have a splurge in Aldi, or a takeaway and a few drinks. I could buy a couple of make-up items, but not Dior or anything fancy, treat myself and my partner to the flicks with popcorn and a Coke thrown in or, if I save it for a year, I could perhaps stretch to a week in Benalmadena.

Though the spending money available on an annual salary of £16,328 would mean I wouldn’t eat or drink much for that week. But, it’s better than a poke in the eye, as my gran used to say.

The issue, however, is that the Living Wage is a voluntary wage. Employers can choose whether to pay it and at the last count 1,000 UK employers were and 35,000 workers were benefiting from it. Lucky them!

Well not that lucky, actually, as the 2013 average UK salary was almost £29,300 for men and £23,600 for women (don’t get me started!). Just to be controversial, your average band 5 midwife receives up to £27,901, a firefighter gets £28,183, a paramedic £36,841, a social worker £31,617 and a train driver £45,489 (Am I too old to re-train?).

Firms who have signed up to the voluntary scheme include Barclays and Standard Life as well as many councils and charities. But your average smaller business can’t afford it and then there are those who could, but won’t, because they’d rather line their own pockets.

But the bit that really hurts a considerable proportion of our population is that the Living Wage is now 21 per cent higher than the compulsory National Minimum Wage, which is currently £6.50 an hour. That amounts to £260 a week and £13,520 a year. Take rent – few could get a mortgage let alone pay it on that salary – utilities, phone, food and other essentials and I very much doubt there’s anything left.

Citizens UK, the community organisation behind the Living Wage project, said the number of companies paying the rate had more than doubled in the past year. That’s good news, but 1,000 employers out of more than two million registered businesses in the UK is derisory.

So when is the Government going to put its weight behind this scheme and make it compulsory for everyone to receive a living wage, not just those fortunate enough to work for a big corporation. Financial incentives for medium and small employers might go some way to balancing the pay inequality.

By the way, the Prime Minister’s salary is £142,500.