A lot of English folkies are in the Musician's Union, both fulltime and semi-pro.The union is very keen to organise in folk circles, and has officers dedicated to this area of music. I'm not sure that the MU gig rates are terribly relevant, they are probably lower than a travelling pro would need. The national minimum gig rate is I believe set to be appropriate for the sort of pub gig level, which is really for the semipro player with day job. I may be wrong on this, perhaps someone with a Musician mag to hand with the latest rates could write in? I haven't time to look this minute.
    I should have thought union rates etc are very relevant to the folk scene, hence my semi-facetious reference to singing the "Blackleg Miner". Folkies were all good lefties in the good old days. Working at below the national rate would have been very frowned on!
    There are still people writing to these and similar threads who think "unpaid" should be part of the definition of folk. But folk music has always had professionals. The pipers and fiddlers and so on who played for weddings, village dances, entertaining workers in the fields etc, were paid. That was a job. Always has been, I imagine.