Underpaid council workers across Britain will take to the streets today with nationwide protests over year-on-year cuts to real earnings.

Up to 1.6 million members of the Unite, GMB and Unison unions will mount protests over what leaders described as a Con-Dem bid to make "scapegoats" out of low-wage workers.

The unions have demanded pay rises of an extra £1.20 an hour and a promise from councils to pay at least the living wage, citing a three-year pay freeze since 2010 and a nominal raise of just 1 per cent last year - barely half inflation.

The year-on-year effects of inflation amount to an 18 per cent drop in a council worker's pay, the unions pointed out.

GMB national secretary for public services Brian Strutton said: "How can it be that in 21st century Britain, public-service workers must rely on state handouts?

"All will be standing together on February 4 and demanding an answer to this question: why are we made scapegoats for a financial crisis we had nothing to do with?"

Around 500,000 workers in local government are believed to earn less than the living wage of £8.55 in London and £7.45 outside the capital.

The figures, which soar well above the legal minimum wage of £6.31 an hour, are calculated at Loughborough University as the smallest amount a typical earner would need to meet their basic needs - food, clothing, rent, fuel and childcare.

But the Local Government Association representing councils across England and Wales refused to budge, blaming coalition cuts of around 40 per cent to local government budgets.

Unison Nottingham branch secretary Martin Sleath said his local members planned to open a soup kitchen to highlight the daily reality they faced.

"Families are struggling on wages that simply haven't kept up with inflation, so we are certainly not experiencing an economic recovery as the government would like us to believe," he said.

Unite national officer Fiona Farmer said her union would not stop fighting "until local government workers get the fair pay rises they deserve."