Of those raised in the lowest income bracket, only 4% reach the top 20% of earners. Jason Desentz, CHRO of Toshiba, is one of them. Desentz explains his philosophy: "Listen, Learn, Lead," and how he leads his people based on his lived experiences.

Show notes from our host, Emily Trant:

I first met Jason in early 2025 when he was speaking about HR leadership at a conference in Atlanta. As I listened to him talk enthusiastically about the value of hard work, I sat in the audience and misjudged him. He’s a successful HR leader, and I assumed he came from a successful family background and that his ‘hard work’ narrative was cover for his privilege. Boy was I wrong.

Later that same day I hosted a roundtable discussion on financial inclusion, and Jason joined in. Afterwards, he came up to me and began to tell me his story. His humble background, how he knows what it feels like to grow up poor, and how that fuels his leadership style.

I knew then that his story needed to be told.

Jason does a lot of public speaking but he never talks about this part of his life, and I am honored that he was willing to open up and tell his story on the Invisible Worker podcast. 

Thank you, Jason, for your authenticity, for your courage, and for lighting the path for so many people to follow.

Here’s more information on some of the topics we discussed:

• USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS): (https://www.fns.usda.gov/) for data on SNAP participation, benefit levels, and program expenditures.
• Pew Charitable Trust: for data on social mobility and the proportion of children who earn more (or less) than their parents. https://www.pew.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2012/pursuingamericandreampdf.pdf 
• Brookings Institution research: finds the U.S. has lower rates of social mobility compared to many other developed countries. It takes about five generations, or 150 years, for a family in the bottom 10% to reach the average income.

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We’re wrapping up Season 1 of the Invisible Worker podcast with a very special Live Episode, brought to you from the annual Financial Wellbeing Forum.From barrister to restaurateur, Nisha Katona MBE traded the courtroom for the kitchen and built Mowgli Street Food. But this isn't just another restaurant story. We delve into the secret ingredient behind Mowgli's success: a workforce that thrives. Discover how Nisha's past shaped Mowgli's unique culture and how she's flipping the script on what it means to work in hospitality. Could her methods be the key to a happier, more fulfilled working life for hospitality workforces?

Show Notes:

This episode is a little bit different since we recorded it live in front of an audience with the amazing Nisha Katona, founder and CEO of Mowgli Street Food. If you’re watching you’ll catch glimpses of the audience and a little bit of interaction. If you’re listening, you might miss one or two gestures (e.g. where Nisha talks about a pile of paperwork being ‘this big’ and shows with her hands) but you’ll still be able to follow the conversation with ease.

If you’re curious about some of the stats we discussed, particularly about the hospitality sector, here are some great sources:

• UK Hospitality has loads of sector stats that I found super interesting
• I used the Resolution Foundation’s Economy 2030 report for all the info about how much hospitality we consume in the UK vs the rest of Europe AND for data on what features of a job people value more than a payrise. This report is worth reading.
• The CIPD is also an excellent source of sector information, and it was my go-to for churn data
• If you felt inspired by Nisha and now you want a job at Mowgli, here’s their careers page. 
• If you’re an HR leader or running a business I also recommend reading up on the guiding principles from the Good Jobs Institute. It’s a US-based organisation, but the foundations they recommend hold up in any market.

Finally, we’ve supported the Mowgli Trust for this episode. Check out the great work they do.

Ps - If you want to be in the audience the next time we record a live episode, subscribe to the Finwell Forum Community.

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A huge thank you to my guest Adam Kay for coming on the show to talk about his experience being a junior doctor in the NHS. I highly recommend reading his breakout novel, This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor. It paints a vivid picture of life on the frontline of the NHS.

If you’re curious about some of the historical and financial information we discussed, here are some of the sources that I used to prep for this show:

• For the NHS origin story you can browse the national archives for a look back through the 1942 Beveridge report, which recommended the creation of the National Health Service.
• The King’s Fund data gives a nice snapshot of the NHS in numbers, and breaks down what you get for every £1bn.

I also looked at the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings data and the NHS Agenda for Change pay rates to get some comparative earnings data and insight into how well the NHS pays as an employer.

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A huge thank you to my guest Owain Service for coming on the show to talk about the behavioural science of money and to unveil the new research we did together.

Here are some of the links to topics we discussed on the show.

Use the Institute of Fiscal Studies tool to check how your household income stacks up against the rest of the UK. I hope you finished the showing perhaps feeling richer than you started, but if you want to check it out to be sure this is a great tool.

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings is a great tool for understanding how pay is distributed. You can also get a snapshot, as I did, from looking at a single month of ONS data

In preparation for this episode Owain advised me to read the Perils of Perception by Bobby Duffy, which was fascinating. I also brushed up on the Thaler and Sunstein’s “Nudge”

Finally, we talked about Scarcity Mindset which is something I’m fascinated with, so much so that I wrote my own short paper about it, Mind Over Money. It’s a relatively short read, links back to some of the sources we discussed on the show, and as a bonus has a brief history of the concept of Scarcity Mindset and how some of the data I observe in my day job as Chief Impact Officer at Wagestream is potentially connected to this phenomenon.

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Thank you to Sara Davies, Senior Research Fellow at Bristol University Personal Finance Research Centre. Sara has been hands on developing the framework for measuring the poverty premium and in my day job I use her research to calculate and report impact. 💪💪💪

Although we pitched this episode as being about measuring the poverty premium, mostly we spoke about how and why it arises, and some of the methodology behind the measurement. If you want to get into the technical details of how it’s measured, here are some of the resources we mentioned on the show:

• David Caplovitz’s 1963 book “The Poor Pay More: Consumer Practices of Low Income Families” → borrow a copy from the Open Library
• This early report by Save the Children shows the potential cost of the poverty premium
• Paying to be poor: uncovering the scale and nature of the poverty premium, published in 2016 is the seminal work from the Bristol University Personal Finance Research Centre. Some of the methodology (and data) has since been updated, and there’s a wealth of information about the poverty premium on the Fair by Design website
• We spoke a bit about scarcity mindset on the show.I’ve written a short report called Mind Over Money that explores this in action, and links to further background reading.

Finally, if you want to feel appalled about the cost of the ‘loyalty penalty’ have a skim through the Citizens Advice super-complaint to the Competition and Markets Authority.

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When you think of an illegal money lender, perhaps you think of a shady figure in a dark alley, or a faceless contact on a phone screen. You may not picture your next door neighbour, your work colleague, or even your friend. More than one million people in England are currently in debt to an illegal money lender, and two thirds of this group thought they were borrowing from a friend. Loan sharks prey on the financially vulnerable, those with unavoidable expenses, and no other financial choices - in this episode, we learn who they are, and how they’re being stopped. 

Cath and Anna work on the front line of the England Illegal Money Lending Team, working to investigate and prosecute loan sharks in the UK. Their team comprises specialist investigators and Liaise Officers who have experience in all areas of the legal and finance worlds.

Show notes

A huge thank you to my guests Cath and Anna who came on the show to share the work of the England Illegal Moneylending Team (aka Stop Loan Sharks).

We created this episode to put the spotlight on the work the team do, and to shine a light on a couple of worrying facts:

• Around half of all people who use a loan shark are in work
• 1 in 5 people meet their loan shark in the workplace

If you suspect someone is operating as a loan shark, report it by calling this 24/7 helpline: 0300 555 2222.

Here are some links to the research, reports and organisations we covered on the show:

• The Centre for Social Justice report “Swimming with Sharks” is a comprehensive overview of what we know about loan sharks in the UK.
• Fancy getting into some legislation? We talked about the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Feel free to leaf through the details.
• We spoke about the regulation of payday lending (High Cost Short Term Credit) and the dramatic change to the volume and availability of payday loans. Have a look at this freedom of information request to see the figures for yourself. 
• You can also check out the FCA’s 2022 financial lives survey for more information about the breadth of different financial products and how many people tend to use each one.

Finally, the team at Stop Loan Sharks will provide free workplace training to help your staff identify the signs of illegal moneylending in the workplace. Please reach out if you’re interested.

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This episode is around savings, and how saving into a pension was made easier through one small, but significant change in process. Less than 50% of UK workers were saving in a pension prior to 2012, and more than 80% now do - and our guest played a role in helping this change become the default across the UK. What’s the next innovation that will change millions of lives?

Show notes

A huge thank you to my guest Helen Dean CBE for coming on the show to tell the story of how pensions auto enrolment unfolded in the UK, plus how we might use that blueprint to drive a similar scale of intervention in short-term savings. I was lucky enough to get some of Helen’s time in her very last week as CEO of Nest Corporation. Hers is a unique story and I am so grateful for the time she took to tell it. And wow, what an impact she’s had on so many working people in the UK.

Here are some links to the research, reports and organisations we covered on the show:

• Professor David Laibson’s work inspired both auto enrolment and opt-out savings trials. Have a scroll through his work to find out more, or simply to feel awed by how much he has produced since receiving his PhD in 1994.
• All the papers by the Pensions Commission are published on the government’s National Archives.

If 300+ page reports don’t float your boat, the Institute for Government has a nice and short (13 pages) summary of the work and output of the Pension Commission. Alternatively you can download the exec summaries from the National Archives and skip the technical annexes.

Turning to short-term savings:

• Nest Insight opt-out payroll saving trials - for more information about these trials
• Report: Opt-out autosave at work goes through the evidence that shows a dramatic boost in savings participation.
• Report: Automating Short-Term Payroll Savings: Evidence from Two Large U.K. Experiments is a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper put together by the academic team from Harvard and Yale. If you like charts and data, this technical paper is for you.
• Report: Getting employees started with saving: Nest Insight employers’ guide – Implementing opt-out payroll autosave for employees. Well worth a read if you’re thinking about this for your organisation.
• Report: Savings for All looks into the intersection of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion efforts and opt-out savings.

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A huge thank you to my guest Nye Cominetti, Principal Economist at the Resolution Foundation for coming on to talk about all things related to the Real Living Wage. 

Here are some links to the research, reports and organisations we covered on the show:

• Living Wage Foundation - for more information about what they do, how to become accredited and the current ‘real’ living wage.
• Resolution Foundation - find even more research on living standards and labour markets. Bonus: I highly recommend signing up to their Top of the Charts Friday wrap up newsletter. It’s short, punchy and very, very topical.
• Report: 20 years of the National Minimum Wage gives a history of the minimum wage as a policy intervention, plus how (and who) it has helped.
• Report: Calculating the Real Living Wage for London and the rest of the UK: 2023 steps through the methodology that Nye and his colleagues use to calculate the Real Living Wage. Get more detail about the household compositions, the shock absorber, and the interaction with the benefits system. Check out the data tables at the end to do your own analysis like I did!
• Report: Check out the household budgets that drive the Minimum Income Standard. Flick through one of the budgets to get an appreciation of the detail that goes into calculating the Real Living Wage.  
• Report: Low Pay Commission Report 2023 sets out the evidence the government relies on to set the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates.
• Latest government minimum wage rates effective April 2024.

Finally, we didn’t cover it in the episode, but the Low Pay Britain 2023 report by Nye and his colleagues at Resolution Foundation is a cracking read and I highly recommend it.

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You might see them as ‘frontline’ or ‘essential’ workers…or you might not see them at all.

A podcast exploring the lives of more than half the working world.

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