Low pay, no pay churning: the hidden story of work and worklessness

a feature article by Tracy Shildrick (School of Social Sciences and Law, Teesside University) published in Poverty Number 142 (Summer 2012)

Rather than the popular image of feckless people languishing in long-term unemployment, recent research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that the predominant experience of being out of work is one of moving in and out of low-paid, short-term jobs, and on and off benefits.

This cycling, or ‘churning’, between work and no work, with people taking poor quality jobs that are often paid too little to move them away from poverty, not only runs directly counter to the dominant story about welfare dependency, but has also been largely ignored by successive governments.

Tracy Shildrick outlines some of the research findings and argues that policy must now focus on the quality, as well as the number, of jobs available if work is to provide a lasting route out of poverty.

Full text (PDF 4pp)

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