From wage supplements to a ‘living wage’? A commentary on the problems of predistribution in Britain’s summer budget of 2015

Abstract

This commentary focuses upon two developments – cuts to wage supplements and an increase in the National Minimum Wage – announced in the first full Conservative government budget in Britain for 18 years. The commentary analyses these through the concept of predistribution and critiques of it. The commentary argues that the two developments can be understood as a weak version of predistribution that will reproduce and deepen class and gender inequalities because of their bases in retrenching collective provision for households living in wage poverty, while increasing the emphasis upon market mechanisms (wages) as the predominate means of supporting such households.