Below the Breadline

Fran Abrams was commissioned by the Guardian to work as a night cleaner at the Savoy—living on (or as it turned out, below) the minimum wage. A short version of that experience appeared in the paper in January 2002. For this book, she has spent a month living on or below the minimum wage in South Yorkshire working in a pickle factory, and then another month in Scotland working as a care assistant. This book shows what it is like to try to live on such a meager wage. Where can you live? What can you afford to eat? What are the jobs, and the workmates, and the bosses like? This book, in entertaining prose, sympathetic portraits, and a telling eye for detail reveals all—including the extraordinary differences across the length of Britain.