THREE-QUARTERS of people in low-paid work are unable to escape into higher-paid positions, even after a decade of regular employment, a new report suggests.

Using official data to track low-paid workers throughout the past decade, a study by the think tank Resolution Foundation set out to discover how many progressed into better-paid jobs. Their report, Escape Plan, found that some moved up the income ladder, but they soon slipped back again.

Researchers found that only a quarter managed to escape low pay permanently, and that single parents, older workers, disabled people, and part-time workers were most likely to find it particularly hard to move out of low-paid work.

The chairman of the social poverty and Child Poverty Commission, Alan Milburn MP, said: "The majority of Britain's poorest-paid workers never escape the low-pay trap. Too many simply cycle in and out of low-paying jobs instead of being able to move up the pay ladder. Any sort of work is better than no work, but being in a job does not guarantee a route out of poverty.

"This research provides compelling evidence for employers and Government to do more on pay progression. It is a powerful argument for Britain to become a Living Wage country."

The Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, addressed the CBI conference this week, and urged it to embrace the Living Wage. He said: "Britain is at risk of becoming a place where the 'haves' and the 'have nots' live in separate parallel worlds; where the 'Common Good' has become a pious platitude rather than a genuine believable aspiration.

"We must find both the political and economic will to create a society which is fair for all rather than fair for a small few. Income inequality is a stain on all our consciences."

The new Living Wage rate was announced last week. It is now £7.85 an hour - a rise of 2.6 per cent on the 2013 rate, and 21 per cent higher than the national minimum wage. In London, it is £9.15.

Last month, the Resolution Foundation reported that the proportion of employees in low-paid work (defined as two-thirds of median hourly pay: £7.69 an hour) increased from 21 to 22 per cent last year, to 5.2 million. It concluded that the UK had among the highest proportion of full-time low-paid workers across the OECD.

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