We now have clearer perspective of who earns minimum wages and how minimum wage institutions across the liberal countries affect the low-wage workforce. Pressure on these institutions to respond to the needs of low-wage workers emerges from three types of evidence. First, the liberal countries, particularly the US, produce more low-income households than comparable welfare states. Later, Chapter 4 provides further evidence on how weak labour market institutions contribute to this problem. Second, low-income workers report greater insecurities relating to both pay levels and opportunities for advancement as well as more frequent disruptions to working life. COVID-19 adds to these problems by wiping out the employment growth over the past decade. Third, deficits in wage-earner institutions of the liberal regime mean that minimum wage institutions are an obvious target for activists and policymakers in addressing pressures on low-wage workers.

The reports of poor pay, limited mobility, and disrupted working lives that emerge from the ISSP data capture only part of the pressures on low-wage workers and their households. This chapter looks at three particular stresses on the social architecture of working-class lives – debt, workfare, and threats to future jobs. Household debt is a central indicator of the poor health of households. Debt reflects poor wages, a troubling relationship to money and finance, and, critically, high housing costs. At the same time, welfare now adds to social stresses on low-wage households rather than cushioning them. Harsh reforms in at least three liberal countries – Australia, the UK, and the US – are indicative of the long-term attack on social protection for unemployed wage-earners. The result is an ‘engineered dependence’ on low-paid jobs or deepening poverty outside paid employment. Finally, future jobs are threatened by more than technology. The organisational forces described in Chapter 1 are driving the growth of insecure, low-paid jobs. Gig employment and the systematic underpayment of workers are part of that problem, consolidating low wages and unstable working lives.

The focus on threats to the social architecture of low-wage working life is not intended to be comprehensive. Nor does it suggest that the liberal countries are the only affluent countries that are adding to the burdens of working-class households.