article_snippet: Today SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon called for an end to the freeze on benefits payments, and said they should rise by more than inflation, making welfare claimants better off each year.
article_snippet: SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon told BBC Radio Scotland: 'BBC Radio Scotland've got a situation where the poorest in BBC Radio Scotland society are plunged being deeper into poverty, where in-work poverty is on the rise. '
article_snippet: I want to look at how we lift people out of poverty.'
article_snippet: SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon called for the minimum wage to rise to £8.70 per cent hour by 2020, adding the Westminster parties were 'scapegoating and penalising the poorest'.
article_snippet: SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon added: 'I've said repeatedly that we shouldn't be holding benefit increases below the rate of inflation because if you do that, and you continue the freeze that we've seen, you drive people on the lowest incomes deeper into poverty.'
article_snippet: SNP deputy leader Stewart Hosie said: 'Westminster's obsession with austerity is holding back Scotland's economy and damaging communities across the country - pushing 100,000 more children in Scotland into poverty and seeing a 400 per cent increase in people forced to rely on food banks. '