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"Loss of Christmas bonus = loss of 4 per cent of annual income"??

  • 19-07-2010 04:40AM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 651 ✭✭✭


    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2010/0717/1224274901301.html
    "Four per cent of annual income was taken away in the form of the “Christmas Bonus”
    - talking about the old-age pension.

    Does this make any sense to anybody? If people get 52.14 weeks of pension payments (or 52.29 weeks in a leap year) + 1 bonus week, then the bonus week is taken away, it is a loss of just under 2% it appears to me i.e. not 4 per cent.


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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,137 ✭✭✭c montgomery


    Never let the truth get in the way of a good story



    Seems to be the mantra of many papers and the labour party these days


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 788 ✭✭✭Timistry


    erm its simple really. The country is broke so we cannot afford it. you cannot get what is not there! I feel for the people affected but that is the harsh reality! I see people on here every day complaining about the government etc. If we do not meet the IMF's projections for debt vs GDP (3% by 2013) we are screwed! Some easturn european country like Lativa? broke EU rules earlier this year and the IMF stepped in and cut public sector pay by 25% across the board. So if the bond and currency markets go against us, this is what we face. Therefore the xmas bonus is but a drop in the economic ocean:mad:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    kangaroo wrote: »
    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2010/0717/1224274901301.html


    - talking about the old-age pension.

    Does this make any sense to anybody? If people get 52.14 weeks of pension payments (or 52.29 weeks in a leap year) + 1 bonus week, then the bonus week is taken away, it is a loss of just under 2% it appears to me i.e. not 4 per cent.

    Shush now, the old people are complaining!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,271 ✭✭✭✭johngalway


    nesf wrote: »
    Shush now, the old people are complaining!

    I hope they do again, and finish the job off this time.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,370 ✭✭✭✭A Dub in Glasgo


    The OP is pointing to a letter to the Irish times, presumably he has now written a letter in response and we can expect publication soon?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    kangaroo wrote: »
    If people get 52.14 weeks of pension payments (or 52.29 weeks in a leap year) + 1 bonus week, then the bonus week is taken away, it is a loss of just under 2% it appears to me i.e. not 4 per cent.

    1/52 = 1.9%, so I'm with you on that calculation.

    Seems like lots of people can't do basic math these days.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 651 ✭✭✭kangaroo


    The OP is pointing to a letter to the Irish times, presumably he has now written a letter in response and we can expect publication soon?
    I'm afraid I'm not sure what the tone is of this message.

    I wanted to check before I wrote anything whether I was missing anything obvious.

    Of course, if I write anything there's no guarantee they'll publish it. Letters to the Irish Times have to be fairly succinct, etc., and if one has no title, one is probably at a disadvantage.

    Anyone else is free to make the same point of course.

    By the way, everyone else who used to get the Christmas bonus also lost it and everyone (or close to it) in receipt of State benefits except those who get the old age pension also had a reduction in the budget December 2009.

    It seems to me that it may be done for political reasons: lots of older people have voted FF all their lives and FF may feel that if they don't annoy them too much, they may be able to hold on to those votes.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,333 ✭✭✭gaz wac


    Timistry wrote: »
    IMF stepped in and cut public sector pay by 25% across the board.:mad:

    how is that a bad thing ? id rather 25% of public sector pay to be cut than 25% of Gov spending on hospital's etc !!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,934 ✭✭✭OhNoYouDidn't


    gaz wac wrote: »
    how is that a bad thing ? id rather 25% of public sector pay to be cut than 25% of Gov spending on hospital's etc !!

    Because thats 25% less spending power of 15% of the economy. If you can't see that being bad for the economy, well dear oh dear


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 651 ✭✭✭kangaroo


    Liam Byrne wrote: »
    1/52 = 1.9%, so I'm with you on that calculation.

    Seems like lots of people can't do basic math these days.
    I remember seeing a letter previously where somebody summed increases in cost of living in the following way: 4% on item 1, 4% on item 2 and 3% on item 3 meant a total increase of 11%!


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,530 ✭✭✭TheInquisitor


    Because thats 25% less spending power of 15% of the economy. If you can't see that being bad for the economy, well dear oh dear

    Your dead right, we should double the wages of all the public service , they would it turn spend all the money and the economy would be saved :rolleyes:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 78,772 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    Were the pensioners getting a payment equal to an extra one or two weeks?
    kangaroo wrote: »
    I remember seeing a letter previously where somebody summed increases in cost of living in the following way: 4% on item 1, 4% on item 2 and 3% on item 3 meant a total increase of 11%!
    Indo?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 651 ✭✭✭kangaroo


    Victor wrote: »
    Were the pensioners getting a payment equal to an extra one or two weeks?
    One week:
    http://www.cardi.ie/?q=news/hanafinsayschristmasbonuswillbepaidto13millionsocialwelfarerecipients

    Upto around 10 years ago, it was less (around 60% of a week?)
    Victor wrote: »
    kangaroo wrote:
    I remember seeing a letter previously where somebody summed increases in cost of living in the following way: 4% on item 1, 4% on item 2 and 3% on item 3 meant a total increase of 11%!
    Indo?
    Think it was the Times.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭MrDarcy


    Timistry wrote: »
    erm its simple really. The country is broke so we cannot afford it. you cannot get what is not there!

    Funny how the teachers, hospital consultants, politicians, civil servants, HSE paper pushers, and endless number of overpaid public sector "middle line managers", can "get what is not there!"...

    We are clearly borrowing pallets of cash every business quarter to top up our national current account so that the above crowd of overpaid public sector workers can "get what is not there", why should the pensioners not seek to have their very humble benefits preserved?!?!?!?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 651 ✭✭✭kangaroo


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    Funny how the teachers, hospital consultants, politicians, civil servants, HSE paper pushers, and endless number of overpaid public sector "middle line managers", can "get what is not there!"...

    We are clearly borrowing pallets of cash every business quarter to top up our national current account so that the above crowd of overpaid public sector workers can "get what is not there", why should the pensioners not seek to have their very humble benefits preserved?!?!?!?
    They can seek what they want - everyone will want to seek to hold on to what they have.

    Whatever one thinks about all those categories of PS workers, they have taken two significant cuts (pension levy and then a pay cut). Other Social Welfare recipients took a cut last year. Other social welfare recipients may well be hit again next time around. The question is whether pensioners should always be excluded when everyone else including people in receipt of disability payments, for example, have to take cuts.

    Personally, I'm disappointed with pensioners - they have plenty of time to mature and learn to accept that just as one's income can go up, occasionally it may have to go down.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭MrDarcy


    kangaroo wrote: »
    They can seek what they want - everyone will want to seek to hold on to what they have.

    Whatever one thinks about all those categories of PS workers, they have taken two significant cuts (pension levy and then a pay cut). Other Social Welfare recipients took a cut last year. Other social welfare recipients may well be hit again next time around. The question is whether pensioners should always be excluded when everyone else including people in receipt of disability payments, for example, have to take cuts.

    Personally, I'm disappointed with pensioners - they have plenty of time to mature and learn to accept that just as one's income can go up, occasionally it may have to go down.

    The PS workers might have accepted pension levy's and other such cuts, I doubt if a single one of that cohort were living on a state pension or it's equivilent monetary income at the time that these cuts were foisted upon them.

    I understand the question that was put, my view is that for as long as we have teachers on 60K, hospital consultants on 250K, (before we even look at what they make in private consultancy work), and politicians on 150K, then we should put the pensioners way way down the bottom of a list of what we are spending our current account money on...

    We now have two groups of people who are untouchable at budget time, the pensioners, (and I believe rightly so), and those that are protected by a public sector union.

    None of this with attend to the issue at hand, which is that we are spending the bulk of 60 billion a year while struggling to take in half that amount. Personally I think we should give pay increases to everyone in receipt of state income, all public sector workers, all pensioners and all those unemployed. We should increase all public spending at the next opportunity.

    Then and only then will we learn the value of money when we default and cannot pay the Gardai, teachers, nurses, consultants, et al, and then and only then will we get our head around the fact that we must generally only pay out what we take in...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 651 ✭✭✭kangaroo


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    The PS workers might have accepted pension levy's and other such cuts, I doubt if a single one of that cohort were living on a state pension or it's equivilent monetary income at the time that these cuts were foisted upon them.
    They might not be on that level of income but the ill and disabled were on less income and they were cut. As you say, pensioners seem to be the untouchables.

    Some pensioners would also have incomes from other sources.
    They also had a lifetime to build up assets.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,700 ✭✭✭irishh_bob


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    The PS workers might have accepted pension levy's and other such cuts, I doubt if a single one of that cohort were living on a state pension or it's equivilent monetary income at the time that these cuts were foisted upon them.

    I understand the question that was put, my view is that for as long as we have teachers on 60K, hospital consultants on 250K, (before we even look at what they make in private consultancy work), and politicians on 150K, then we should put the pensioners way way down the bottom of a list of what we are spending our current account money on...

    We now have two groups of people who are untouchable at budget time, the pensioners, (and I believe rightly so), and those that are protected by a public sector union.

    None of this with attend to the issue at hand, which is that we are spending the bulk of 60 billion a year while struggling to take in half that amount. Personally I think we should give pay increases to everyone in receipt of state income, all public sector workers, all pensioners and all those unemployed. We should increase all public spending at the next opportunity.

    Then and only then will we learn the value of money when we default and cannot pay the Gardai, teachers, nurses, consultants, et al, and then and only then will we get our head around the fact that we must generally only pay out what we take in...

    so baschically your in favour of fischal austerity for everyone bar pensioners

    pensioners are among the richest demographics in the country , thier the group who most benefited from the property boom and who are the least indebted , they recieve direct payments which are twice that of our nearest and wealthier neighbour and thats before we even taken into account the multitude of other perks associated with being old in this country , oh and dont give me the , they worked from morning till night and paid 80% in taxes back in the day , even you never worked a day in your life , you recieve 90% of what those who did , this was the generation who turned a blind eye to all kinds of behaviour from politicans to other powerfull institutions , thier are group who have been over indulged not because of their immense contribution to our nations history but instead for thier superb track record in voting fianna fail , enough of the misty eyed sentimentality , their can be no room for sacred cows , we simply cant afford it


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 39,019 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭MrDarcy


    Pensioners are probably the physically weakest in our society, old age is upon them and they have lost the strength of their youth, but they are the only cohort of people in this country that will take no sh*t off this government and for that I commend them.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,700 ✭✭✭irishh_bob


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    Pensioners are probably the physically weakest in our society, old age is upon them and they have lost the strength of their youth, but they are the only cohort of people in this country that will take no sh*t off this government and for that I commend them.

    children are the weakest both physically and every other way , death is a certainty for everyone , ensuring upward only payments to pensioners just because they are experiencing the symptoms of age is redicolous


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭MrDarcy


    irishh_bob wrote: »
    children are the weakest both physically and every other way , death is a certainty for everyone , ensuring upward only payments to pensioners just because they are experiencing the symptoms of age is redicolous

    Maybe it should be cut, but I'd argue that it should not be cut for as long as we have a dreadfully inefficient public sector, where large scale redundancies need to be implemented and those that are left behind in jobs given a good dose of private sector proficiency.

    We'd make more headway with getting our house in order if we tore up that outrageous Croke Park agreement and the first person to go on a strike or a work to rule gets the sack.

    Pensioners and people living on 196 a week, how on earth can you argue that it is right to cut an income like that???


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 651 ✭✭✭kangaroo


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    Pensioners are probably the physically weakest in our society
    People on disability/illness payments are a fairly weak group also and if they have children, those children are quite vulnerable also. This group were cut in the last budget but pensioners were not. It could be the same next time around (and/or the time after that). Perhaps the cuts for those who are ill and disabled might be less if it was seen as fair to take a bit off pensioners this time.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭Head The Wall


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    Maybe it should be cut, but I'd argue that it should not be cut for as long as we have a dreadfully inefficient public sector, where large scale redundancies need to be implemented and those that are left behind in jobs given a good dose of private sector proficiency.

    Again why should pensioners be cosseted from the pain everyone else that gets money from the govt is feeling and will continue to feel into the future. Everyone that pays tax knows their money is being wasted in the govt black hole. Pensioners should be the same


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,700 ✭✭✭irishh_bob


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    Maybe it should be cut, but I'd argue that it should not be cut for as long as we have a dreadfully inefficient public sector, where large scale redundancies need to be implemented and those that are left behind in jobs given a good dose of private sector proficiency.

    We'd make more headway with getting our house in order if we tore up that outrageous Croke Park agreement and the first person to go on a strike or a work to rule gets the sack.

    Pensioners and people living on 196 a week, how on earth can you argue that it is right to cut an income like that???

    pensioners recieve 232 or 219 per week depending on whether they paid prsi during thier lifetime , when you include medical card , free travel , free phone , more or less free electricity , fuel allowance etc , you could almost add another 100 euro to it , they are spoiled


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 78,772 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    Personally I think we should give pay increases to everyone in receipt of state income, all public sector workers, all pensioners and all those unemployed. We should increase all public spending at the next opportunity.

    Then and only then will we learn the value of money when we default and cannot pay the Gardai, teachers, nurses, consultants, et al, and then and only then will we get our head around the fact that we must generally only pay out what we take in...
    Starving the child to death to teach them the value of food is a dangerous game.
    MrDarcy wrote: »
    Pensioners are probably the physically weakest in our society, old age is upon them and they have lost the strength of their youth, but they are the only cohort of people in this country that will take no sh*t off this government and for that I commend them.
    Whoa! We're not putting them to hard labour and remember all those labour saving devices that have been developed over the last 200 years?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,155 ✭✭✭chasm


    This post has been deleted.

    Actually it is less than that for a couple, as they get a personal rate and a qualified adult rate, so it works out as €363.70 (aged between 66 and 80) or €373.70(over 80 yrs). Other than that i agree with what you have said ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭MrDarcy


    Again why should pensioners be cosseted from the pain everyone else that gets money from the govt is feeling and will continue to feel into the future. Everyone that pays tax knows their money is being wasted in the govt black hole. Pensioners should be the same

    Here's why... According to the source below, Brian Cowen currently receives a state salary of €228,466. That's €4,293.57 a week in gross earnings. Despite that, his wife can still claim children's allowance?!?!?!?!?

    Now I argue that it would be more fair and equitable to take the children's allowance off families who are on this kind of an income, because they clearly do not need state support to rear their children, than take a tenner off people who are trying to get by on €196 a week or in the case of pensioners, a little bit more than that. It's insane that we are so utterly selfish in this country that we allow people on such serious incomes to tell us that they need or should be entitled to children's allowance. Seriously, what drugs are we actually on where we tolerate this, Michael O' Leary's wife can claim children's allowance for their two kids, obviously no income issues there worth mentioning, again what drugs are we all taking where we accept this?!?


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoiseach


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 651 ✭✭✭kangaroo


    MrDarcy, one could make the same argument (that some rich people don't need the children's allowance) to say that some rich people don't need the State pension.

    The real question is why should all other welfare payments including for the sick and disabled be cut, but not the payment for pensioners.

    I think it was done, as I say, because FF hope to hold on to many pensioners as voters - some people have voted FF all their lives and FF may feel if they don't annoy them too much, they will hold on to them.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭Head The Wall


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    Now I argue that it would be more fair and equitable to take the children's allowance off families who are on this kind of an income, because they clearly do not need state support to rear their children, than take a tenner off people who are trying to get by on €196 a week or in the case of pensioners, a little bit more than that.


    The point is we need to cut all welfare not one or the other but everything across the board.


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