The processes of privatisation and casualisation have seen the tearing up of working conditions, the lengthening of the working day, and a fall in the level of real wages. The division between rich and poor is widening annually. For those not in the wealthiest 20 per cent, economic insecurity permeates every aspect of daily life. In working class areas, parents of young children face additional pressures. Responsibility for education, health, recreation, child-care increasingly devolves on them.
Conditions are grim and services grossly inadequate and underfunded.
Welfare is under sustained attack. Government, according to this line of thinking, is not in the business of ameliorating poverty or providing social facilities. Barbara Wyrzykowski, for example, worked the night shift at McDonald's from 10pm until 6am. Her partner, a builders labourer, left home for work as she arrived. School holidays meant her five young children were at home all day for two weeks.