“I don't know how they manage,” is the usual middle class response to being told of the incomes of people dependent on pensions and low wages. Genuine concern is tempered by the knowledge that in some way ‘they’ do manage. There is no apparent starvation, few reports of malnutrition. There are no people begging in the streets or living in packing cases, except of course the aborigines, who have always been seen as exceptions.