A Critical Review of Polly Toynbee's Hard Work Life in Low-Pay Britain

This report provides a comprehensive review of Polly Toynbee's book, 'Hard Work Life in Low-Pay Britain,' which examines the lives of individuals working for minimum wage in the UK. The book delves into the harsh realities of low-paying jobs, exposing the social injustices and economic disparities faced by these workers. Toynbee, through personal experiences in various low-wage positions, highlights the challenges of living on minimum wage, including the impact on mental health, the role of outsourcing, and the exploitation of workers by contractors and private sectors. The review analyzes the book's arguments, including the undervaluation of essential workers and the cycle of poverty, and discusses potential solutions such as increasing minimum wages and addressing workplace discrimination. The report also touches upon the author's perspective on the importance of social capital and the need for a more equitable society, offering insights into the book's critique of the British economy and its implications for policy and social welfare.

Hard work life in low pay
Britain by Polly Toynbee
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Review of the book......................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
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INTRODUCTION
Hard work life in low- pay Britain is a book which was written by Polly Toynbee in year
2003. The book is about the life on minimum wage. The author moved into council housing state
and took on different jobs like cake packer, telemarketer and hospital porter. The book is critical
to moral failings of advocates and capitalism for those individuals who work vital jobs to get
more morally just pay. The book has 242 pages and was published by Bloomsbury publishing.
The content in the book covers various areas like capitalism, poverty and British politics
(Toynbee, 2003). The book exposes the cruelty of life of British people, airs the unheeded voices
of victims in economy and reveals the faces which are unnoticed of suffering British lot and
depicts about social injustice in entire Britain. A book review is referred as a kind of literary
criticism in that a book is described or assessed on the basis of style, content and merit. It may be
a prime source, summary review, scholarly review or opinion piece and can be reviewed for
magazines and newspapers, book websites on internet, school work or printed periodicals. This
report is based on a review of book named as "Hard work life in low pay Britain" written by
Polly Toynbee. The review of whole book along with its brief summary is provided in this
project.
MAIN BODY
Review of the book
The book “Hard work life in low- pay Britain” chiefly uncovers brutality of British life and
portrays about social injustice in Britain. Polly Toynbee utilize a vivid image in order to describe
the predicament of poor people in population. Toynbee takes time off from her job and
researches into the life of least wage employee for entire month by taking various jobs extending
from banquet lady, telemarketer, Nursing Home care assistant, hospital porter and even cake
packer so as to gain immediate information on the way it is like to live in minimum wage. In the
end of this inquiry, numerous startling discoveries was found which has been hidden from
British public for a long time. It was discovered by the author that working under minimum
wages is enforcing poverty. Polly Toynbee stated that it is difficult for individuals who get little
wages to live their life and stay on ladder. Uphill up can be an imaginary only. The workers with
minimum are drowned in eternal poverty state from which they are not able a way out.
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As per the opinion of author, the workers who get minimum wages are left in the end to be
the victim of scorching economy which demands a lot to them. An issue of outsourcing was also
tackles by the author along with the way it has influenced the workers with minimum wages. The
traditional roles of public sector have been given to contractors and private sector who are third
party. The public jobs like public sector cleaners, hospital portending, caregivers etc. have been
outsourced. It is a move through the administration of Britain of hindering the creation of unions
which will assist in fighting for the least wage worker's rights. The contractors as well as private
sector are only driven through a single objective of earning profit and do not care about anything,
not even about their employees or workers. This has a situation of exploitation of workers just
because the organisations want to reach their objectives.
The author gave up comfortable life and started to live in the seediest block in Lambeth
which is situated near her home and took several jobs which would have needed approximately
eighty hours of toil to similar in pay what she gets when Polly took time out for half an hour chat
on British Broadcasting Corporation. At the nursery of foreign office, Polly walked paths
familiar from normal life, to downing street and Whitehall, encountering a man who was high
powered labour and whom she was known from years. She was feeling both snubbed and
relieved when they did not recognise Polly. The author believes that people are poor due to their
work as the work they do is not paid properly. She also argues in her book that the workers and
work people rely on such as care workers, cleaners, producers of necessary foodstuffs and goods
- are significantly undervalued as well as there is a little parity when majority of these are
undervalued and underpaid jobs complete by women as well as the individuals who belongs from
minority ethnic and black communities.
The scale of issue is that 3 and a half millions of individuals in Britain live in working
households below or on the poverty line. More working people are there in comparison to the
individuals who are unemployed. She leaves her home in Clapham and move in a small house.
The author could not live on minimum wages. Her account of initiating and moving from
advantages to her initial wage makes for jaw dropping account of difficulties of system that have
developed for individuals to negotiate. The changing role of public sector from direct employee
to hirer of agencies which then offer individuals less paid jobs with no pension rights, no Union
production as well as poor holiday entitlements. The author had done various jobs which all was
done at the rates of pay sometimes below or just on the statutory minimum wage. The agencies
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and employers have found different ways of running the system of paying even less than 4.10
pounds an hour.
By reading the book, the link between mental health, poverty, opportunity, work, health as
well as the way an area of policy of government influence significantly on entire range of others
are underlined. According to the author, as mental health is highly impacted by low incomes,
increasing incomes, specifically the income of those individuals who paid the least, enhances the
mental health of people. Reducing inequalities assist in developing social capital as well as
develops better social cohesion which are the potent forces in preventing the mental ill health
and improving mental health of individuals. It is stated in the book that individual with more
income levels are not continuously being reminded of regular essentials did not have as well as
can never buy. Better income level can assist individuals act as cushion when something does not
go well. It gets more individuals into work and assistant removing social isolation as well as
declining exclusion. Apart from this, it is stated by the author that addressing discrimination in
workplace assist in developing more acceptance and tolerance of difference (Book Review: Hard
Work: Life in Low-pay Britain, 2003).
The author claims that economic barring is a big no entrance sign on each usual pleasure.
Thus, absence of choice regarding forces associated with like lifestyle and nutrition is
compounded through enticement all around in order to fall in to debt. For the escape prospect,
the writer tests complacency of society which discovers disparity morally contented, based on
that, individuals can go by their individual efforts. The lowermost decile of stipendiaries hinders
a cycle of low pay or no pay occupation uncertainty with no expectation of growing further in
comparison to the following decile up in reality. It has been found that one in five labours get a
smaller amount than 6 pounds per hour or 240 quid a week. Among these workers, many are the
women describe ancillary in jobs, which is the word resulting from Latin for women slave or
handmaid. Such kind of terminology appears to place assistant in classrooms, cleaning, nursing
homes and hospitals as in unnecessary or extraneous way to smooth operating of society and is
aids seemingly to justify poor conditions and least pay.
The original twist in the analysis of Polly Toynbee of ubiquitous poor in community is that
in order to investigation about least paid work, the author moved and lived into host existing
accommodation and took on different minimum wage jobs. Through inspiring from the same
experiment in United States of America, the author did her finest in order to cast sideways the
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frills of wealthy life as a journalist and broadcaster and put her efforts to live on least wage.
During she lived below cover for some weeks in nastiest estate in poorest borough of London,
the author worked as care assistant, hospital cleaner, porter and other jobs. The self-proclaimed
social barring of author involved pretentious no network of relatives and friends to support her,
existing along with long suffering fellow peoples and problem families. By living in social
exclusion, the author found herself in the surrounding or sphere where many activities and
shopping streets were deprived of her through less reserves - roughly to see, as it was, by a glass
threateningly. The author writes well as well as capture both, conversation along with a nous of
place in her different job expeditions. Though, the author describes that the world is
unspectacular and it is not disheartening book.
The author struggles with devious procedures as well as forms of system of social security
and trivial unkindness of agencies and employers, stinging at means in which labours a level or
double up the ladder reproach and scorn at low-status work staff. At the other side, the author
notices conspiratorial consensus of least pays jobs, the means of spinning out work and ‘perks’
of permitted waste food in order to validate hours reserved and to dupe the ‘time and sign men’
reviewing the computer printouts. Prospective observations are made by the author, especially
regarding the state of public services. She notices the way subcontracting of services like hospice
cleaning has developed an exploited and demoralized workforce as well as the management
which has mislaid touch with entailment of job. Constricting out depicts that it is today not
possible to identify precisely how many individuals work in public subdivision: similarly,
crucial, there is no faithfulness of employer to the subcontracted staff members. She stated that
high turnover is one among the cost of this policy. She found that only 7 percent of workplaces
in public subdivision have any employees left with little paid. This susceptible group of workers
has been moved completely to private segment (Every fair from fair sometime declines, 2003)
The author used knowledge to interrogate her individual values along with those of
humanity. Polly Toynbee spend hours in seeking jobs as well as waiting to be seen, observing
furiously that the workers are treated as they are aquatic from leaking tap. Yet, she imitates that
she was not utilised to being treated in such a way. Articulate as well as educate, but with
insights that the potentials prevent the author from completely understanding a public or society
with usual innumeracy and illiteracy, she shyly depicts that rudimentary sessions of education
will not go erroneous for underrated work force. As per the opinion of author, training for work
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was lacking in many work places or organisations she sampled, significantly in health care
organisations. The wonder is that she records that it very much dedication and commitment is
frequently shown. In her book, a chapter named as "it does not have to exist this manner", the
author turns to solutions or answers: this derives down to increasing the least wages, whatsoever
the cost. For small businesses, the author is unsympathetic to any outcome or to pay differentials.
She argues that, a farmer gives poorer circumstances for least paid in general and there is less
sign in relation to hit on influences in wage demands. Here, the economic quarrel seems weak,
the author makes robust quarrel pointing to free 30 percent of civilisation from poverty.
It is not an ultimate reverie to contend for reasonable shares, a better educated workforce as
well as a more consistent society; or to say that an enhancement in wage rate for women or
females in service segment will benefit unquestionably their families also. Though, the
experience of work of Polly Toynbee imparted her that there is a ‘denotation in cleaning’. She
simply concluded that pay is everything in for the people in society as it is conveying status,
health and opportunity. Paying the poor people with more wages and rich people with less pay is
the robust message that leads to Hard Work. It has been demonstrated by the Polly Toynbee that
‘The extreme of evils as well as the nastiest of crimes is poverty’. The book of Polly Toynbee is
at its superlative when it labels the poverty experience. The political viewpoint that triggers the
author’s recipe for alleviating that experience, or enhancing it, is not credible. The author herself
notes, endeavours to dispense wealth as per the moral merit have unsuccessful disastrously in
communist nations, impoverishing everybody excluding politicians, generals and bureaucrats.
The book of the author suffers from severe confines (Hard Work Life in Low-Pay Britain, 2003).
Polly Toynbee herself feels so protected, from material view point, that she was unsuccessful to
understand the way unconfident other middle-class individuals feel. The author also overstates
the certainly great significance of money in the society.
As per her view point, 'Wage is everything.' Polly Toynbee does not stay extended enough
in one job in order to get to know about her corresponding workers in an appropriate way, so she
inclines to undervalue how ingenious they are and how much assistance they can receive from
friends, families and volunteer bodies involving churches. In the opinion of the author, low-paid
individuals are victims who can raised up only through massive state intervention as well as in
specifically through a dramatic rise in least wage (Poverty just isn’t what it used to be, 2003). A
conspiratorial egalitarianism in least wage jobs was noticed by the author however, she does so,
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and confesses that, as a stranger, and the one who is in very much haste and also in grave to
waste time in jokes.
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that it is very necessary that
workers will get at least minimum wages for their work. According to the views of author, pay is
everything and contributing highly in reducing poverty and improving living condition of people
living in the society. Apart from this, author also stated in her book that paying poor people more
and rich people less is a robust message to work hard.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Toynbee, P., 2003. Hard work: Life in low-pay Britain. Bloomsbury Publishing UK.
Hard Work Life in Low-Pay Britain, 2003. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/hard-work-9780747564157/>
Book Review: Hard Work: Life in Low-pay Britain, 2003. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/pier-professional/book-review-hard-work-life-in-low-pay-
britain-Ry0jls2INJ>
Every fair from fair sometime declines, 2003. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/every-fair-from-fair-sometime-declines>
Poverty just ain't what it used to be, 2003. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4729792/Poverty-just-aint-what-it-used-to-be.html>
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