Employers embrace the warm glow of paying their staff enough to live on

The Walmart effect and the example of certain London local councils has led to pay rises for many. But poverty wages elsewhere could be hard to shift

Ffyona Dawber has given her four least well-paid staff a pay rise. She's the managing director of Synergy Vision, a small medical communications company in north-west London. In return, Brent Council will now cut 500 off her rates bill.

This is one of the ways in which local politicians are using every weapon at their disposal to try to tackle inequality, and as the jobs market picks up - and even David Cameron urges firms to pay their staff more - there is hope that a rising tide may start to lift the lowest-paid workers above the poverty line.

"If there's one thing Labour ought to be about, it's dignity of work, and that's what the living wage helps achieve."

"We hope we'll get to a place where people will start to ask about pay and take it into account when they're shopping."

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