A functioning market would have much lower wages in, say, Liverpool than in Cambridge, which would attract business, and relieve poor unemployed people. If the market were allowed to work – which would require lower benefits as well as lower wages, since benefits form a floor under wages - then businesses would move north. Of course, it is difficult to take on the benefit system, but even tax breaks for businesses in development areas would be better than a living wage. The living wage is simply the worst solution to an admitedly serious problem – the high levels of unemployment in the UK.