Whitbread are going to increase prices in order to afford paying a living wage.

According to their site “at it’s heart, Whitbread is all about people”.

Their profit last year was 400 million pounds.

They have 45000 staff they reckon.

National living wage is 7.86 and current minimum wage is 6.50 for a difference of 1.36 per hour.

45000 staff * 40 hours per week * 1.36 difference per hour = just under 2.5 million pounds.

Or 0.6 percent of their profit.

And of course many of their staff won’t currently be on minimum wage, or working full time.

So yeah, that price-hike would seem to be more about politics than accounting.