Barbara Pocock

Helen Masterman-Smith

Even in an international downturn, Australia is a prosperous country. Yet many Australians are working more for less and struggling to meet their basic needs, despite being employed. Living Low Paid investigates the Orwellian vision unfolding, often behind closed doors, in Australia's working heartland. The book challenges the low wage path to national prosperity by exposing the hard realities of living low paid for Australian workers today. In their own words, workers tell the costs of low pay for individuals, families and communities and the social fabric at large. Workers are increasingly being undermined by casualisation, hours of work and exploitative pay setting methods, while enormous tax breaks are given to the rich, jobs are outsourced, unions are muzzled and job entitlements such as sick pay, holiday pay and penalty rates are scrapped. Living Low Paid offers a biting account of Australia's growing underbelly. It is vital reading for anyone who cares about where Australia is heading. The hope that a job was a sure road out of poverty for most in our country no longer holds. This book shows that many face insecure or inadequate hours, low hourly rates and little access to basic benefits. Low pay casts a long shadow, well into retirement for many.' Louise Tarrant, National Secretary, Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union This book helps strip back the cloak which shrouds the lived experience of working poverty in a nation where prosperity shields so many from direct knowledge. It is an eloquent argument for change: we can and must do better.' Tony Nicholson, Executive Director Brotherhood of St Laurence

The dark side of prosperous Australia

Living Low Paid

Philippa Williams

Natalie Skinner

Time poverty is a problem for many Australian households and work is the main culprit. Australians start work young, and we are working more, and longer into old age. While maximising our productivity and enhancing our professional skills, we must also raise our children well, care for our aged, be involved in our community and shrink our carbon footprint a footprint shaped by the patterns and habits of our work, social obligations and households. What is it costing Australians to try and do it all? And what is it costing our families and communities? Incisive and thought-provoking, Time Bomb throws light on poor urban planning, workplace laws and practices, care obligations and other issues that rob us of time and put our households under pressure. And it looks at how work affects our response to the greatest concern of our time our environmental challenges.

Barbara Pocock

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