ABSTRACT
It is partly because of the uncertainties surrounding the interpretation of the results of the consensual income approach, that Mack and Lansley (1985) have devised a method to try to identify in a direct way a minimum standard of living. They wanted “to discover whether there is a public consensus on what is an unacceptable standard of living for Britain in 1983” (p. 50). Being skeptical about people’s ability to translate a certain standard of living into an income level, they tried to discover a minimum standard of living, by directly asking to a sample of people to indicate which items, of a list of goods and activities, were “necessities” for living in Britain in the 1980’s, and which ones were merely “desirables” (pp. 43–44). The word “necessity” was further clarified for the respondents as something that all adults should be able to afford, and that they should not have to do without. This question is clearly consensual, because it refers to all adults in general, and not to the respondent in particular. It is also noteworthy that the question is expressed in terms of ability, and not in terms of what people should have, no matter how. “It was important that some people would manage without these ‘necessities’, some even from choice” (Mack and Lansley, 1985: 52). In this chapter we will focus our attention on the possibility of deriving a minimum standard of living, according to the answers given to the “necessities” question, and supposedly reflecting a social consensus on this matter.
