The state should have an interest in promoting good work, decent pay, and better progression: higher tax revenues and a happier population are two of the obvious benefits. But in truth, the state is part of the problem. Time and again, in its policies on unemployment, childcare, transport and skills, the state conspires to reduce the power of low-paid workers.
Katy Jones and Ashwin Kumar argue that we can create a world in which the state empowers workers: one in which the state is on the side of people trying to get on in life. However, they show that there is no easy route: it requires overturning orthodoxies and established thinking on productivity, skills, unemployment policy, transport and childcare. If the Beveridge report was about anything, it was about not tinkering around the edges: the big challenges have to be faced. To lift ourselves out of our low-pay, low-productivity rut requires similarly bold thinking - and hopefully this book makes a start.