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Below the Breadline: Living on the Minimum Wage
Fran Abrams was commissioned by the Guardian to work as a night cleaner at the Savoy—living on (or as it turned out, below) the minimum wage. A short version of that experience appeared in the paper in January 2002. For this book, she has spent a month living on or below the minimum wage in South Yorkshire working in a pickle factory, and then another month in Scotland working as a care assistant. This book shows what it is like to try to live on such a meager wage. Where can you live? What can you afford to eat? What are the jobs, and the workmates, and the bosses like? This book, in entertaining prose, sympathetic portraits, and a telling eye for detail reveals all—including the extraordinary differences across the length of Britain.
- GenresNonfictionPolitics
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First published July 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 28, 2020
3.5*
(I wish someone has followed Abrams' footsteps after we, Eastern Europeans, have joined UK's workforce, and once again when Brexit has changed the whole landscape...)
(I wish someone has followed Abrams' footsteps after we, Eastern Europeans, have joined UK's workforce, and once again when Brexit has changed the whole landscape...)
September 28, 2013
MINIMAL LIFES ON THE MINIMUM WAGE
Writers of middle-class extraction often get a hard time for reporting from the coalface of poverty, what is often pejoratively dismissed as holidaying in other people's misery. This might carry some force but for the fact that the authors of such accusations are generally comfortably off themselves, and have no wish to be reminded of the often precarious position of those beneath them in the social-economic scale, particularly if there is any possibility of this leading to them bearing any increase in either taxes, or the costs that they pay for a variety of services, some of which are essential even if generally deemed unglamorous.
The journalist Fran Abrams quite sensibly gives little thought to these "concerns" and in a British parallel to Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage America" writes about her experience of working at the minimum wage in three different areas of Britain.
The areas Abrams works and lives in are London (for a cleaning contractor), Doncaster (for a contractor - working in a pickle factory) and up in Scotland, north of Inverness (an old folks home). Her experiences include sub-standard housing (bedsit, caravan and a hostel); wages that are below the statutory minimum; illegal deductions from wages (for administration of bank payments, uniforms, etc); promised hours failing to materialise; "mistakes" in her pay (which is too say she is not paid for all the hours she works). Other issues she writes about are specific to the individual workplaces. Abrams is particularly interesting on the cultures in the three geographical areas she works in, and the three different types of jobs that she takes on. There are disturbing instances in them all, but none more than in the residential care home where the attitude of some of her colleagues towards their elderly charges is frankly appalling.
"Below the Breadline" covers issues relevant to working and living on low wages in a clear and un-sensational manner. I felt that it could have done with a good deal more general context than is in fact present in the text. Also the position of those on low wages, especially those working for contractors, often means periods of unemployment: a subject barely touched upon. That said, this is an area rarely covered in the media, least of all for those who work in the low-wage sectors of the economy, and on that basis it is worth reading.
Writers of middle-class extraction often get a hard time for reporting from the coalface of poverty, what is often pejoratively dismissed as holidaying in other people's misery. This might carry some force but for the fact that the authors of such accusations are generally comfortably off themselves, and have no wish to be reminded of the often precarious position of those beneath them in the social-economic scale, particularly if there is any possibility of this leading to them bearing any increase in either taxes, or the costs that they pay for a variety of services, some of which are essential even if generally deemed unglamorous.
The journalist Fran Abrams quite sensibly gives little thought to these "concerns" and in a British parallel to Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage America" writes about her experience of working at the minimum wage in three different areas of Britain.
The areas Abrams works and lives in are London (for a cleaning contractor), Doncaster (for a contractor - working in a pickle factory) and up in Scotland, north of Inverness (an old folks home). Her experiences include sub-standard housing (bedsit, caravan and a hostel); wages that are below the statutory minimum; illegal deductions from wages (for administration of bank payments, uniforms, etc); promised hours failing to materialise; "mistakes" in her pay (which is too say she is not paid for all the hours she works). Other issues she writes about are specific to the individual workplaces. Abrams is particularly interesting on the cultures in the three geographical areas she works in, and the three different types of jobs that she takes on. There are disturbing instances in them all, but none more than in the residential care home where the attitude of some of her colleagues towards their elderly charges is frankly appalling.
"Below the Breadline" covers issues relevant to working and living on low wages in a clear and un-sensational manner. I felt that it could have done with a good deal more general context than is in fact present in the text. Also the position of those on low wages, especially those working for contractors, often means periods of unemployment: a subject barely touched upon. That said, this is an area rarely covered in the media, least of all for those who work in the low-wage sectors of the economy, and on that basis it is worth reading.
July 20, 2011
‘Below the Breadline – Living on the Minimum Wage’ documents Abrams’ journey working minimum wage jobs in London, Yorkshire and Scotland. I don’t think this book was trying to solve the world’s (let alone the UK’s) problems, but rather was offering an insight into a way of life that so few of us see.
It narrates through the mundaneness of long hours of shift work and the characters met along the way. How take home wages were often less than the minimum wage due to a variety of deductions. It observes that some people were earning less than if they were on benefits. It questioned who can/should speak up for the minimum wage workforce and what the government has done (and hasn’t done) over the years.
Rather selfishly, what I took from this book was a reflection on just how fortunate I am. And for much more than I realised when I was younger. Yes – fortunate for a roof over my head, an education, stable finances and the opportunities that these provide, but also for my self-belief and determination. The confidence I have in challenging those who may treat me poorly. The absolute belief in my rights, what I am fairly entitled to and the drive I have to better myself and those around me.
This book is an easy read and useful for some introspection.
It narrates through the mundaneness of long hours of shift work and the characters met along the way. How take home wages were often less than the minimum wage due to a variety of deductions. It observes that some people were earning less than if they were on benefits. It questioned who can/should speak up for the minimum wage workforce and what the government has done (and hasn’t done) over the years.
Rather selfishly, what I took from this book was a reflection on just how fortunate I am. And for much more than I realised when I was younger. Yes – fortunate for a roof over my head, an education, stable finances and the opportunities that these provide, but also for my self-belief and determination. The confidence I have in challenging those who may treat me poorly. The absolute belief in my rights, what I am fairly entitled to and the drive I have to better myself and those around me.
This book is an easy read and useful for some introspection.
September 2, 2009
British version of the Nickled and Dimed experiment. Guardian journalist tries to live on the UK minimum wage in Scotland, Doncaster and incredibly London. The London chapter was the most scary. Working through the night cleaning at the Savoy hotel, scrubbing mens urinals...bleak. And accomodation from hell. And she ends up with a budget deficit so no its not possible. One of her co-workers when his shift finishes at 7am, as he can't afford a place to live, gets on the tube circle line and goes to sleep for a few hours before going back to work....
December 19, 2014
Amazing how things haven't changed since 2002 - how out of place she feels in the cleaning crew for The Savoy for instance as the only British non immigrant worker and how impossible it is to keep to budget in London compared to the other places she works. The account of the care home is quite unsettling as well.
September 17, 2023
"If they say poverty is a great leveller, they are wrong. Poverty doesn’t just divide people, it splits them apart like the segments of an orange. From the outside, they look like a single solid mass. Inside they’re only aware of their separateness, their differences... On £4 an hour or thereabouts you can’t afford working-class solidarity”
This research, which began as a conversation between Abrams and her editor, who queried whether she could live off of just the minimum wage, became a fully fledged investigation through which Abrams goes ‘undercover’ to find jobs that pay the (then) minimum wage (£3.70) London, Yorkshire and Aberdeen. She details the challenges she faces - including not receiving overtime for hours worked, having to pay for compulsory uniforms and the difficulties of living off of such small amounts. She masterfully interacts with her colleagues and those who she lives with throughout the journey, as she navigates from cleaning and pickle jar packing to working in a retirement home, for amounts so small (and granted - rents so cheap), that I had to take a double glance at each summary. The honesty shared within the book and reading the thoughts of those she meets, contrasted with her own, could have been a book within its own right.
“The modern deregulated labour market is a messy affair, but where the low-paid are concerned it has done a remarkably neat filleting job. Not only are they separated from each other, they are also separated from the rest of society, cut off from many of their most obvious escape routes.”
That Below The Breadline was published in 2002 is a bleak reminder that how things are, in part, is how things have always been. The use of political and mathematical slight of hands to present the results of poverty have always varied and the investigation, quite bluntly, reads today as harshly as I imagine it read over 20 years ago. Abrams takes no side politically, instead berating the circumstances that fuelled the conditions allowing exploitative employment and sub-par housing to flourish under the nose of those living very different realities.
“The issue of what constitutes a living wage is so complex that virtually nobody has made a serious effort to work out in recent times what is actually means...They simply set the so-called ‘poverty line’ at 50 per cent of the average wage.”
I am an avid fan of Profile Books, having discovered them in 2020, and was delighted to discover that they were publishing social commentary and thought-provoking investigative journalism long before the pandemic. This book reads as a glorious voyuerism into the other side of the UK, the side that keeps the country ticking and ensures that all of the less desirable work (and people) are sorted out outside of view. A lot of this labour was enabled via the freedom of movement and the needs of international students, leaving me wondering how this may play out in the next 10 to 20 years as labour needs grow.
This research, which began as a conversation between Abrams and her editor, who queried whether she could live off of just the minimum wage, became a fully fledged investigation through which Abrams goes ‘undercover’ to find jobs that pay the (then) minimum wage (£3.70) London, Yorkshire and Aberdeen. She details the challenges she faces - including not receiving overtime for hours worked, having to pay for compulsory uniforms and the difficulties of living off of such small amounts. She masterfully interacts with her colleagues and those who she lives with throughout the journey, as she navigates from cleaning and pickle jar packing to working in a retirement home, for amounts so small (and granted - rents so cheap), that I had to take a double glance at each summary. The honesty shared within the book and reading the thoughts of those she meets, contrasted with her own, could have been a book within its own right.
“The modern deregulated labour market is a messy affair, but where the low-paid are concerned it has done a remarkably neat filleting job. Not only are they separated from each other, they are also separated from the rest of society, cut off from many of their most obvious escape routes.”
That Below The Breadline was published in 2002 is a bleak reminder that how things are, in part, is how things have always been. The use of political and mathematical slight of hands to present the results of poverty have always varied and the investigation, quite bluntly, reads today as harshly as I imagine it read over 20 years ago. Abrams takes no side politically, instead berating the circumstances that fuelled the conditions allowing exploitative employment and sub-par housing to flourish under the nose of those living very different realities.
“The issue of what constitutes a living wage is so complex that virtually nobody has made a serious effort to work out in recent times what is actually means...They simply set the so-called ‘poverty line’ at 50 per cent of the average wage.”
I am an avid fan of Profile Books, having discovered them in 2020, and was delighted to discover that they were publishing social commentary and thought-provoking investigative journalism long before the pandemic. This book reads as a glorious voyuerism into the other side of the UK, the side that keeps the country ticking and ensures that all of the less desirable work (and people) are sorted out outside of view. A lot of this labour was enabled via the freedom of movement and the needs of international students, leaving me wondering how this may play out in the next 10 to 20 years as labour needs grow.
March 8, 2023
very good!!! found it very interesting, brought a lot of new insight
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews