ISSUE NO. 61 · WEDNESDAY 28 OCTOBER 2026

Youth unemployment past 16% as the wage floor rises 3.9%, London homes £5,400 down, and a $1bn buyback on the eve of the Budget

Unemployment among 16 to 24-year-olds has passed 16% for the first time in over a decade. Into that, the Chancellor is reported to be putting the legal pay floor up 3.9% this morning. The two facts are not in conflict, but they are in tension.

Everything on Healey’s desk today is somebody’s bill. Stamp duty is already pulling money out of London sellers’ pockets. HSBC has handed shareholders a billion dollars days before a surcharge rise that would cost the banks about £2bn a year. Three groups, three different answers wanted.

Below: the pay floor and the promise behind it, the tax that is cutting London valuations, the buyback with awkward timing, four numbers, the diary and one calculator.

Lead

The legal pay floor would go to £13.20 an hour, and the promise to put under-21s on the adult rate quietly goes away.

Healey is reported to be lifting the National Living Wage 3.9%, from £12.71 to £13.20 for workers over 21 — 49p an hour, or about £955 a year before tax on a 37.5-hour week. The under-21 rate rises by the same percentage, from £10.85 to £11.27, which is 42p and leaves the cash gap slightly wider. Labour’s manifesto promised to end the youth rate and align it by 2030; holding both to one percentage puts that on ice. Kate Nicholls of UKHospitality has argued equalisation would damage entry-level job opportunities. The Treasury declined to comment, so the figures remain a briefing until this afternoon. Read the full story →

The Numbers

Bank Rate and inflation are where Monday left them, and the index had a good session. The fourth number is the one this morning is aimed at.

More News

Eighty-five per cent of homes across London and the south east are worth less than a year ago, against 35% nationally.

Zoopla puts the slide down to higher mortgage costs and weaker demand since the Iran war, and the capital feels both harder because buyers there need larger loans. The average London home has lost £5,400 in a year; in the north west the typical home has gained £6,600. The second drag is tax. Stamp duty scales with price, so the capital carries the heaviest bill, and sellers are cutting asking prices to keep deals moving. Zoopla wants the 2% band extended, which it reckons would save movers up to £7,500 and first-time buyers up to £6,000. Read the full story →

HSBC came up more than $300m short on revenue and announced a $1bn buyback in the same breath.

Revenue was $18.6bn against the $18.9bn analysts expected, with net interest income about $247m light and wealth a touch under. Profit of $9.63bn landed almost exactly on the $9.69bn consensus, which kept the damage on the top line and gave the board room to pay out. Operating expenses fell 12% to $8.8bn, though most of that is last year’s Madoff-related legal charge dropping out rather than anything that repeats. The timing is the point: a five per cent rise in the banking surcharge, expected today, could raise about £2bn a year. Read the full story →

The Brief

• Meta Share Sale Follows a 26% Revenue Jump — Up to $95bn wanted from investors.
• Investing at All-Time Highs Beats Waiting for a Dip — Record-high days returned 9.5%, other days 9.2%.
• Stock Market Crash Fears Miss a Dot-Com Difference — Tech hit 48 times forward earnings in 2000.

UK finance, in plain EnglishFollow @MJBurrows on X	Follow

On the Diary

• Today — Healey’s first Budget. The OBR publishes its forecast alongside it, and the banking surcharge is the line the City is watching.
• Thursday, 9.30am GMT — Business demography, Q3. Firms started and closed in the quarter before any of this was announced.
• Friday, 9.30am GMT — UK National Accounts, the Blue Book. The annual revision can move the growth figures the Budget was built on.

The Toolbox

One calculator from the site each issue, chosen to match whatever has just landed. Free, no sign-up, and every step of the sum is shown.

Minimum Wage Calculator

“If the floor moves this afternoon, this works out what your hours are actually worth at the new rate, by age band and by the week you are paid for.”

The Close

Two of today’s stories are about who absorbs a cost, and they point in opposite directions. Young workers keep a lower rate because the fear is that closing it would cost them jobs. Bank shareholders are being paid out early because the fear is that waiting would cost them money. Both are defensive moves made before the same speech. Only one group gets to act first.

If something here is wrong, or there is something you want dug into, just reply. It comes straight to me.

MJB