New research on sick pay and debt out today:

SSP is £96 per week – one-fifth of average earnings. The average earner would lose over £816 if self-isolating on SSP.

43% of workers would be pushed into debt or unable to pay bills if they had to self-isolate on statutory sick pay.

Around a quarter of workers receive just statutory sick pay when ill, and 9% told us they receive nothing at all.

There's big discrepancies by income. Pretty much all high earners (£50k+) receive full pay when sick, but only a third of low earners (<£15k) do.

If test and trace is to work, and if we want to stop people going into debt because they followed guidance and self-isolated, government must:

- Increase statutory sick pay to a real living wage (£326 p/w)
- Expand it so it's available to all https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/why-we-need-increase-statutory-sick-pay