The Minimum Income Standard (MIS), a method for constructing minimum household budgets based on public consensus, helps to operationalise Townsend's concept of a 'participatory social minimum'. Since 2008 MIS has tracked changes in the contents and cost of minimum baskets of goods and services. The article reflects on aspects of this research: the living standard that MIS represents, how consensus is reached and its record of providing consistent results over time. Understanding these features allows policy makers, practitioners and analysts to use the results of MIS appropriately, alongside other research, to benchmark the success of measures to promote adequate incomes.

No abstract

In times of labour market insecurity and retrenchment of state support, low income families rely on friends and relatives as a safety net. This article explores the enhanced role of this ‘third source of welfare’ in light of these developments. It draws on qualitative longitudinal research to demonstrate how families’ situations fluctuate over two years and the importance of social support networks in hard times and periods of crisis. The research illustrates how social support is not necessarily a stable structure that families facing insecurity can fall back on, but rather a variable resource, and fluid over time, as those who provide such support experience changing capabilities and needs. A policy challenge is to help reinforce and not undermine the conditions that enable valuable social support to be offered and sustained, while ensuring sufficient reliable state support to avoid families having no choice but to depend on this potentially fragile resource as a safety net.

No abstract

The 'living wage' and low income: can adequate pay contribute to adequate family living standards? AbstractThe success of the contemporary 'living wage' movement has been highlighted by the UK government's decision to increase the statutory minimum wage for over-25s sharply, in the name of improving living standards. This breaks with neo-liberal reluctance to intervene in labour markets, yet raises difficult issues centring around whether minimum hourly pay rates are suited to promoting adequate household incomes. At worst, 'living wages' could distract from other policies with this objective. This article acknowledges recent critiques of the living wage as an anti-poverty measure, but demonstrates that in combination with other policies, wage floors can play a crucial role. It shows that low pay and inadequate working incomes overlap substantially. The article argues that governments promising that work will deliver adequate living standards need a clearer narrative in which pay, public transfers/subsidies and sufficient levels of employment combine to deliver minimum acceptable living standards for working families.

No abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.*Related content and download information correct at time of download. Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to describe how the voluntary living wage (LW) in the UK is set. It examines how this calculation relates to contemporary approaches to setting wage floors, both in relation to their goal of supporting adequate living standards and in relation to the place of wage floors in the labour mark. Design/methodology/approach -The paper examines how compulsory and voluntary wage floors are being determined, in the UK and in particular the role of public consensus in contributing to the calculation and adoption of a LW. It then reflects on the future sustainability of a system of wage floors in which the concept of the LW plays a significant role. Findings -The central finding is that widespread support for wages delivering socially acceptable minimum living standards has transformed the context in which low pay is being addressed in the UK. The LW idea has stimulated more decisive efforts to do so; however, if a compulsory version of a LW were to reach a level shown to be harming jobs, this could seriously undermine such efforts. Moreover, the extent to which adequate wages are compatible with high employment levels can also be influenced by state support for households, especially tax credits and Universal Credit. Originality/value -The paper clarifies how the setting of the UK LW contributes to objectives related both to living standards and to labour markets, and critically addresses some key issues raised.

-This article looks at attempts to create markets in schooling by increasing school choice, making particular reference to a study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of the impact of choice policies in six countries: Australia, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States. The main policies examined are subsidies to private schools and enhancement of choice between schools within the public sector. The article identifies five kinds of imperfection in school markets in practice: the failure of clear alternatives to present themselves to consumers; the arbitrariness of criteria for choosing; limits to capacity at popular schools; the failure of supply to diversify in response to consumer pressures and the existence of negative externalities. It is argued that these imperfections make it necessary to intervene to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of school choice.