This book examines the link between poverty on the one hand and labour market participation and the distributive capacity of welfare states on the other hand. It focuses on the working-age population and the evolutions in Europe during the 'good economic years' before the financial crisis. The book provides social research in an accessible way. It introduces the reader into the various concepts of measuring poverty and exclusion and discusses data limitations. Obviously, we are not the first to observe worrying trends in poverty or inequality. The specific approach in this book may be...