{"title":"Low-wage workers and threats to working-class living standards","authors":"Shaun Wilson","doi":"10.46692/9781447341192.004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46692/9781447341192.004","url":null,"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.","PeriodicalId":289478,"journal":{"name":"Living Wages and the Welfare State","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121907605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conclusion: living wages and liberal welfare states in the 21st century","authors":"Shaun Wilson","doi":"10.46692/9781447341192.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46692/9781447341192.008","url":null,"abstract":"The Conclusion makes the case for a living wage welfare state, building on the analysis, evidence, and argument of the previous chapters. It distinguishes a minimal reform strategy based on narrow improvements in the wage floor from a broader reform program aimed at building living wage foundations that are realistic and suitable to the structures, power resources, and institutions of liberal welfare states. In doing so, it makes a distinction between conservative-liberal, social-liberal, and living wages models for transforming liberal welfare and employment structures to reduce inequalities and improve working class lives. At the same time, the book strongly endorses a greater role for social scientists in debates and research about low wage workers and encourages social policy analysts to re-engage with the emerging situation in overextended and liberalised labour markets.","PeriodicalId":289478,"journal":{"name":"Living Wages and the Welfare State","volume":"43 11","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120887804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The crumbling orthodoxy: arguments for low minimum wages","authors":"Shaun Wilson","doi":"10.46692/9781447341192.005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46692/9781447341192.005","url":null,"abstract":"For decades, economists have told policymakers about the inevitable employment losses from higher minimum wages. Intense debate is traced back to Roosevelt’s reforms and counter-assertions by economists Stigler and Friedman about the disastrous impact of wage regulation. The chapter argues that a ‘policy monopoly’ of low minimum wages formed, one reinforced by fears about globalisation and technology. Liberals and social liberals approached the poverty consequences of low wages through social policy designed around negative income tax ideas associated with Friedman. The policy monopoly has, however, been weakened by improved evidence arising from the economics profession itself, which, in turn, has emboldened activists and policymakers to lift workers’ wages. But debate and conflict over living wage reforms will almost certainly continue in the turbulent 2020s.","PeriodicalId":289478,"journal":{"name":"Living Wages and the Welfare State","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127735908","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Challenges to living wage welfare states","authors":"","doi":"10.46692/9781447341192.007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46692/9781447341192.007","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":289478,"journal":{"name":"Living Wages and the Welfare State","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131215217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Enter the new politics of the living wage","authors":"Shaun Wilson","doi":"10.46692/9781447341192.006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46692/9781447341192.006","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter takes on the central task of the book, explaining the renewed push for high minimum wages in the liberal countries. It begins by showing that, contrary to claims of superiority of the employment performance of the liberal model, the English-speaking democracies have relatively poor achievements in employment that relate to the limited power resources of the labour movement and wage-earner institutions of that cluster. These structural weaknesses, combined with the weakened policy monopoly discussed previously, have provided impetus to worker activism (i.e. Fight for 15 in the US) and legislative victories in NZ, the UK, and the US aimed at ‘living wage’ minimums. The chapter accounts for why reforms have taken the direction they have: the re-activation of union-party alliances, bolder legislatures, and redistributive opportunities shrunk by austerity.","PeriodicalId":289478,"journal":{"name":"Living Wages and the Welfare State","volume":"2677 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126693900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: the challenge of a living wage","authors":"Shaun Wilson","doi":"10.46692/9781447341192.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46692/9781447341192.002","url":null,"abstract":"The Introductory chapter begins with the claim that renewed pressure for higher minimum or living wages has special significance for the Anglo-American social model. The English-speaking liberal welfare states have assertively pushed ‘work first’ social policy through hard-line welfare reform, particularly in Australia, the UK, and US, and the consequence is renewed emphasis on improving low-wage employment as a path to ameliorating inequality. The Introduction further establishes that arguments for living wages go beyond union demands and claims made by socialists—liberals and conservatives have cause to support wage justice. At the same time, living wage movements offer practical beginning points for a major challenge to increasing inequality and should be seen as the most significant alternative redistributive project to the basic income.","PeriodicalId":289478,"journal":{"name":"Living Wages and the Welfare State","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116154056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Minimum wage workers and the low-wage labour market","authors":"Shaun Wilson","doi":"10.46692/9781447341192.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46692/9781447341192.003","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter is the first of two chapters that present the most important foundations for later analysis of contemporary minimum wage politics and policy. It begins with an overview of the typical occupational and employment profiles associated with minimum and low-wage workforces and then presents cross-country social survey data on the attitudes and experiences of low-wage workers in the English-speaking welfare states. Findings are clear: minimum and low-wage workers exemplify broader social and gender inequalities but workers express commitment to their work and a clear preference and need for higher pay. The chapter ends with a presentation of the basic architecture of minimum wage determination across the six liberal countries that are central to the analysis contained in this book.","PeriodicalId":289478,"journal":{"name":"Living Wages and the Welfare State","volume":"125 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122127956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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