Low-wage workers and threats to working-class living standards

Abstract

This chapter addresses the other side of the struggle for decent minimum or living wages—those changing patterns in living costs and work organisation that are putting pressure on working families. Significantly improved minimum hourly wages cannot fully compensate for very high living costs—especially housing-related costs and insecurities—or highly insecure work and systematic underpayment of workers’ wages. Nor can they fully compensate poor workers for the promotion of workfare social policies that maximise dependence on private labour markets. The living wages movement is making a difference to working poverty, but it becomes clear that a broader living wages compact involving public investment in housing and protections at work are necessary to sustain genuine improvements. The chapter ends with further consideration of what factors drove the early 20th century push for minimum wages, uncovering parallels and discontinuities with the present struggle. Union weakness in low-wage sectors, the absence of effective social protection, and major gender inequalities are points of continuity.