Who are 'working people'?

The government has promised not to raise taxes for this group but is struggling to define who they are

Crowd of business people walking to work with view of Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf behind
Labour's definition of the term is a 'work in progress'
(Image credit: shomos uddin / Getty Images)

Britain's working people "know exactly who they are", Keir Starmer has said as he promised to "protect their payslips" in tomorrow's Budget.

But "with the big day looming, it still isn't clear" what the term "working people" actually means, said the BBC. Even some government ministers have struggled to clarify the definition of a concept that touches on politically charged notions of identity.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us

  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.