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Guy Standing

Guy Standing is professorial research associate at SOAS University of London and honorary co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), an international NGO that promotes basic income. He is author of The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (2011) and Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth (2019).

Guy Standing

Guy Standing is professorial research associate at SOAS University of London and honorary co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), an international NGO that promotes basic income. He is author of The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (2011) and Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth (2019).

Rescuing the concept of precarity

Guy Standing 7th September 2021

The cause of the precariat isn’t helped by fuzzy thinking about who and what it is.

Building a progressive alliance in Britain

Guy Standing 15th January 2020

Labour must abandon faith in one more heave for Westminster victory and embrace a progressive alliance, including for electoral reform.

Left Should Stop Equating Labour With Work

Guy Standing 23rd March 2018

It is intellectually excusable for those on the political right to want to restrict the meaning of work to labour, or income-earning activity. It is inexcusable for those on the political left to do so. Social democrats are paying a heavy political price for having done so throughout the 20th century. They fell into their […]

The Five Lies Of Rentier Capitalism

Guy Standing 27th October 2016

We live in the age of rentier capitalism. It is the crisis point of the Global Transformation, during which claims made for capitalism have been wholly undermined by a developing system that is radically different from what its advocates say. They assert a belief in ‘free markets’ and want us to believe that they are […]

Basic Income Pilots: A Better Option Than QE

Guy Standing 9th February 2015 7 Comments

With much fanfare, Mario Draghi announced on January 22 that the European Central Bank (ECB) would be pumping €60bn a month into the financial markets until September 2016, in what is euphemistically called “quantitative easing” (QE). This amounts to 10% of Eurozone GDP and 10% of its gross public debt. Many observers guess the flow […]

How To Combat Inequalities Produced By Global Capitalism

Guy Standing 12th May 2014 4 Comments

Rising inequality is one of the most salient issues in global and European politics. Guy Standing writes that what we have witnessed in recent decades is not simply an increase in inequality, but also the emergence of a new globalised class structure. A key component of this structure is what he terms ‘The Precariat’: a new class […]

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Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political profile for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sustained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60 per cent of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission's proposals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year's WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to 12 euro per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum-wage trailblazer.


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Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


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Living and working in Europe 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic continued to be a defining force in 2021, and Eurofound continued its work of examining and recording the many and diverse impacts across the EU. Living and working in Europe 2021 provides a snapshot of the changes to employment, work and living conditions in Europe. It also summarises the agency’s findings on issues such as gender equality in employment, wealth inequality and labour shortages. These will have a significant bearing on recovery from the pandemic, resilience in the face of the war in Ukraine and a successful transition to a green and digital future.


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EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


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