This week we take on ‘hard-working families’ and explore what it means for how we live, work and care for each other.

Words of Affirmation is a podcast from Care Full, hosted by Hannah Webster & Ruth Hannan.

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And, you can find out more about hosts Care Full on our website.

This week we talked about:

• This 2005 Guardian article on ‘hardworking families’

• This Oscar Reyes article on ‘hardworking families’

• Keir Starmer’s essay ‘The Road Ahead’ featuring 10 principles and the commitment to “always put hard-working families and their priorities first”

• Rutger Bregman’s book Humankind and in conversation on the Guardian’s Today in Focus

• David Graeber’s book Bullshit Jobs

• Sophie Lewis’s book Abolish the Family

• Notes from Below’s Workers Inquiry (including the ‘Under London’ episode)

• Reading on the Rochdale Pioneers

• Emily Kenway’s work on the Commons of Care

Our music for the episode is Bobby Bertoli’s Rebirth (thanks Bob x).