GEORGE OSBORNE could face a legal challenge over his plans to exclude young workers from his so-called “national living wage,” the TUC said yesterday.

The Chancellor’s summer Budget included a 50p boost to the minimum wage, which will see it rise to £7.20 from April.

But the wage rise will not apply to workers between 21 and 24, who will continue to receive just £6.70.

It represents the highest age threshold for full pay in the developed world — matched only by austerity-ravaged Greece.

Lower minimum wage rates for under-21s and apprentices are allowed under the Equalities Act because the government has successfully claimed that it protects jobs for young workers.

But in new evidence submitted to the Low Pay Commission, the TUC says there are question marks over whether a lower rate for 21- to 24-year-olds “can be justified at all on employment grounds.

“It is not clear whether the government has prepared a case for the exclusion of younger workers from the new rate,” it adds.

“But not to do so might leave the process open to challenge.”

It would not be the first time the government has been successfully sued by a young worker.

In 2013, 24-year-old Cait Reilly took her battle against the Tories’ workfare policy, which made benefit claimants work for free, to the Court of Appeal and won.

Lower wage rates for young workers could also prompt employers to sack staff when they reach 25 and create tensions between workers of different ages, the TUC warns.

General secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Younger workers must be treated fairly. They face the same expenses as other adults and are highly productive.”

The CBI big business lobby has also submitted evidence to the commission warning that workers will be “replaced by machines” if they have to implement the living wage.

Hitting back, shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: “The same argument was used by the CBI with the introduction of the minimum wage and, interestingly, we know now that not only did it not cost jobs, it actually created jobs in the boost in the demand for the economy nationally.”