The concept of a “living wage”, originally a response to the appalling pay and conditions of nineteenth-century sweatshops, has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence in the early twenty-first century. In the United States and the United Kingdom in particular, grassroots movements protesting against a growing pay divide have taken up the cause of a living wage, arguing that paying workers less than they need to live on is both immoral and short sighted. It is immoral, they say, because workers deserve a fair share of the prosperity to which they contribute, at least at a level that allows them to live in dignity. It is short-sighted because it treats workers as expendable, whereas employees who feel valued show greater loyalty to their employers, and give more value back.

As part of a more general protest against the consequences of present-day capitalism, living wage campaigns have made a lot of noise. But what distinguishes them particularly is their impact. In English-speaking countries, where campaigns have been strongest, millions of workers are getting substantial pay rises under the living wage banner. In the United States, a call for a $15 an hour living wage, over twice the federal minimum, once seemed utopian. Now, California and New York have legislated a $15 minimum, to be phased in over the next few years. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party, which had opposed any form of minimum wage until 2000, fifteen years later introduced a “National Living Wage”, set to increase the compulsory minimum by 38 per cent for workers over 25. Thousands of companies in the UK, ranging from Ikea to Nestlé, have adopted a higher, voluntary living wage. And living wage campaigns are being extended across the world, urging multinational companies to assure decent pay for manufacturing workers in poorer countries, particularly through supply-chain agreements.

So the idea of a living wage has allowed multiple campaigners to unify around an apparently simple idea and make a real difference to people’s lives. Yet its exact meaning, measurement and implementation have been far from uniform. In fact, things called “living wages” have taken so many different forms that to speak of “the living wage” is itself an oversimplification (but one that this book occasionally indulges in, when referring to living wage movements as a whole).