# Prize-winning poverty book’s authors donate prize money to charity

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/07/26/prizewinning-poverty-book039s-authors-donate-prize-money-charity/
- Published: 2013-07-26T12:08:18+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Two Teesside University professors, whose book on poverty in the UK has won an award,
have donated their £2,000 prize to a charity helping people living in poverty.

Professors Rob MacDonald and Tracy Shildrick were awarded the British Academy Peter
Townsend Policy Press Prize for their book ‘[Poverty and Insecurity: Life in Low-pay, No-pay Britain](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1847429106?ie=UTF8&camp=3194&creative=21330&creativeASIN=1847429106&linkCode=shr&tag=219&qid=1374836856&sr=8-1&keywords=Poverty+and+Insecurity%3A+Life+in+Low-pay%2C+No-pay+Britain)‘,
which exposed the myth of the ‘benefits scrounger’.

The book was based on research with people from Middlesbrough who were caught up
in the ‘low-pay, no-pay’ cycle. It demonstrated that people living in poverty are
not like the “prejudiced portraits of benefit scroungers” as depicted in popular
culture. Instead it found a lasting work commitment and a hatred of claiming benefits
among those living in, or close to, poverty.

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The Peter Townsend Policy Press Prize is awarded biennially for outstanding work
with policy relevance in the areas of poverty and inequality, ageing and the lives
of older people, disability and inequalities in health.

The authors donated the £2,000 prize money to Thrive, a charity based in Thornaby
which combines research, campaigns and projects to help the most excluded households
in the region.

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