Exploring the lived experiences of both poverty and prosperity in the UK, this book examines the material and symbolic significance of welfare austerity and its implications for social citizenship and inequality.  Uniquely, the book offers a rare and vivid insight into the everyday lives, attitudes and behaviours of the rich as well as the poor, demonstrating how those marginalised and validated by the existing welfare system make sense of the prevailing socio-political settlement and their own position within it.