A new report has called for a social care wage floor set at £2 above the minimum wage.

The proposal comes in the Resolution Foundation’s Who Cares? report which says care workers are paying for their dedication with unsafe working conditions and unlawful minimum wage underpayment.

The report finds typical hourly pay for frontline care workers was £10.90 as of April 2022, below the economy wide average of £14.47 and less than some low-paid jobs, including transport and call centres as well as average pay for public sector nursing assistants (£11.14).

Additionally, it says the ‘pay premium’ social care workers receive relative to other low-paid jobs for additional skills and challenges shrank from 5% in 2011 to 1% in 2021.

The research also says domiciliary care worker earning £11.07 per hour is typically being paid an effective hourly rate of £9.20, 30p below the minimum wage, because they are rarely paid for their travel time between homes.

For care workers in residential homes, the report highlights issues around understaffing and resultant safety breaches with tasks requiring at least two people often being carried out by one.

Despite these challenges, the report highlights that in the most recent study in 2017 88% of social care workers said they were satisfied with their job, compared to 83% in other low-paid roles.

Less than half (47%) of job moves by frontline care workers were out of the sector, compared with two-thirds for storage, leisure, call centre and cleaning workers.

The Foundation called for a wage floor for care work set at £2 above the adult minimum wage of £12.42 from April 2023.

It also proposes the introduction of measures to ensures domiciliary carers are paid for their travel time, instead of just receiving mileage costs.

Nye Cominetti, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Social care workers fulfil a skilled and hugely necessary role in our society, and make a real difference to people’s lives. That’s why they love their jobs more than other low-paid workers do.

“But the danger is this sense of vocation and commitment comes with a high price, including unlawful under-payment of the minimum wage and unsafe working conditions for some.

“Addressing these problems isn’t cost-free but it is urgent given the chronic shortage of care workers. Improving working conditions in the care sector is the only route to making it more attractive for new recruits and giving our ageing society the level of care it deserves.”