Living wages and the welfare state: the Anglo-American social model in transition

Are living wages an unaffordable and unwieldy aspiration or a key progressive reform? Demands for fair minimum incomes have dominated national debates amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This topical book addresses the rapidly shifting politics of minimum wages in US, the UK, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and Australia, where workfare has compelled many to find low-income work and where neoliberal thinking about minimum wages has prevailed. Analysing minimum wage policies within a political-economy narrative, this innovative book offers an alternative to the Basic Income narrative and identifies the success of Living Wage campaigns as central to welfare state change. Are living wages an unaffordable and unwieldy aspiration or a key progressive reform? Demands for fair minimum incomes have dominated national debates amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This topical book addresses the rapidly shifting politics of minimum wages in US, the UK, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and Australia, where workfare has compelled many to find low-income work and where neoliberal thinking about minimum wages has prevailed. Analysing minimum wage policies within a political-economy narrative, this innovative book offers an alternative to the Basic Income narrative and identifies the success of Living Wage campaigns as central to welfare state change.