May 2021 Nonfiction General Titles

Living Wages and the Welfare State: The Anglo-American Social Model in Transition Shaun Wilson


Hardback | May 2021 | Policy Press | 9781447341185 | 232pp | 234x156mm | RFB | AUD$175.00, NZD$214.99
Paperback | May 2021 | Policy Press | 9781447341208 | 232pp | 234x156mm | RFB | AUD$57.99, NZD$69.99

In the 21st century, 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 Australia, the UK, Canada, the US, New Zealand and Ireland, 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.