(no subject)

[ajva]

Just read Polly Toynbee's Hard Work over the weekend, and would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the politics of social justice as it relates to low pay in the UK.

Very readable.

Comments

[countess-sophia.livejournal.com]

What's the gist of her argument, or is mainly an account of the situation?

Soph

[ajva.livejournal.com]

A church charity sent a challenge to lots of well-known/wealthy people to live on the minimum wage for Lent. Toynbee decided to take it up as best she could.

So having got the approval of top bods in the Clapham housing department, she moves into a crummy council flat that it scheduled for demolition, and lives for the next six weeks or so as if she had nothing (or as near as is practicable - she is very honest that she cheats sometimes, like going home for Sunday lunch a couple of times, although she deducts £5 from her weekly budget for that).

She applies for benefits to see what the experience is like (doesn't take them - she pays herself the appropriate sum to live on), and then applies for a series of crappy low-paid jobs.

The book is about her experiences and thoughts about what she discovers, and she makes a good case in the final stages of the book challenging the received wisdom that pay increases for the low-paid are necessarily inflationary.