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Version 1 2017-09-19, 11:51Version 1 2017-09-19, 11:51
journal contribution
posted on 2020-12-03, 16:36authored byDonald Hirsch
The success of the contemporary ‘living wage’ movement has been highlighted by the UK government’s decision to increase the statutory minimum wage for over-25s sharply, in the name of improving living
standards. This breaks with neoliberal reluctance to intervene in labour markets, yet raises difficult issues centring around whether minimum hourly pay rates are suited to promoting adequate household incomes. At worst, ‘living wages’ could distract from other policies with this
objective. This article acknowledges recent critiques of the living wage
as an anti-poverty measure, but demonstrates that, in combination with
other policies, wage floors can play a crucial role. It shows that low pay and inadequate working incomes overlap substantially. The article argues that governments promising that work will deliver adequate living standards need a clearer narrative in which pay, public transfers/subsidies and sufficient levels of employment combine to deliver minimum
acceptable living standards for working families.
History
Published in
Critical Social Policy
Volume
38
Issue
2
Pages
367 - 386
Citation
HIRSCH, D., 2017. The ‘living wage’ and low income: can adequate pay contribute to adequate family living standards? Critical Social Policy, 38 (2), pp.367-386
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Acceptance date
2017-09-15
Publication date
2017-09-15
Notes
This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Critical Social Policy and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018317729469.