Living Low Paid: The Dark Side Of Prosperous Australia

The Age

Saturday November 15, 2008

Steven Carroll

Living Low Paid: The Dark Side of Prosperous Australia

Helen Masterman-Smith & Barbara Pocock

Allen & Unwin, $35

FOR decades the boast of freewheeling, neo-conservative capitalism was that through letting the infallible market rule, greater wealth would be created and this would trickle down from the top to the bottom of society. What this survey amply demonstrates is that no such thing happened. The authors interviewed 92 employees, examples of the working poor, whose names have been changed and details altered where necessary. They lift the rug on our age of prosperity to reveal unpleasant truths underneath; the working poor (roughly $27,000 per year, a quarter of the workforce) such as Susan, a nanny who spends more time with the child in her care than its high-flying, executive mother. As the authors point out, the system that supports obscenely high executive wages can't exist without them. A vivid picture of the dark side of the capitalist moon.

© 2008 The Age

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