Poverty and insecurity

Abstract

This book is about the lives of individuals and families living in or near poverty – despite their enduring commitment to work and repeated engagement with jobs. It uncovers first-hand the realities of life in low-pay, no-pay Britain for millions of workers facing the new precariousness of employment. Rooted in long-term research and in-depth interviews with men and women, younger and older people, employers and welfare-to-work agencies in Teesside, North East England - Poverty and Insecurity tells a cautionary tale about the meaning and implication of poor, insecure and low-waged work for an increasing number of people caught up in this low-pay, no-pay cycle in Britain. It argues that ‘poor work’ and precariousness have become the defining conditions of life for much of the working class under contemporary capitalism. Running directly counter to current political and policy orthodoxies that see the poor and unemployed as workshy and welfare dependent - and that ‘employment is always the best route out of poverty’ - the book describes how people remained poor despite (and sometimes because) of their repeated engagement with jobs. Churning between poor work and welfare – the low-pay, no-pay cycle – is, the authors argue, ignored by politicians and policy makers but increasingly characteristic of much working life in the flexibilised labour markets of late capitalism. The empirical substance of this book makes the real lives of working people living in poverty visible and stands as a corrective to the prejudicial modern-day myth-making so beloved of tabloid editors, social commentators and politicians.

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