Truth about Irish welfare rates

mollymosfet

I really think any calls to reduce welfare further are purely ideology driven, and by an unpleasant one at that. Consistently we're compared to the UK which has extraordinarily low levels of social welfare.

http://www.eapn.ie/documents/1_Social%20Welfare%20How%20Ireland%20Compares%20in%20Europe.pdf

In fact our overall spending on Social Protection is very low.

This paper has sought to provide a summary of how Irish social welfare
expenditure compares to our European neighbours, with particular reference to
the EU15, as the most appropriate comparator. This information is critical in any
debate on the ‘generosity’ of Ireland’s social welfare system.
Myths and misinformation regarding Ireland’s social welfare rates contributes
to stigmatisation and stereotyping of people experiencing poverty, and bolsters
a culture of blame and marginalisation. The rate of unemployment transfers in
Ireland is not generous by European standards.
In fact not only are social welfare rates much lower but Ireland’s overall spending
on social protection is exceptionally low. As we have shown the picture is not
a simple one and it must be acknowledged that a comparison of the income
of those in long term unemployment in Ireland compares reasonable well to
our European neighbours, and is far closer to being in line with costs of living
disparities; Ireland has the third highest rates of the maximum non-contributory
social welfare payments within the EU15 (with the second highest cost of living).
To suggest that deflation is having a significant impact on the quality of life of
those living in poverty is at best premature. The cost of basic items has not fallen
significantly and in many cases has continued to rise. Studies demonstrate that
Irish social welfare rates are insufficient to realise a ‘basic minimum budget’
and CSO data demonstrates that current rate are below the poverty line
As the Irish experience over the last ten year’s clearly demonstrates social
transfers are critical tools in the fight against poverty, and have been used
very successfully to reduce poverty in Ireland. However if the government is
to continue to progress towards realising its commitment to ending consistent
poverty by 2016, then it is critical that there is a detailed and frank debate on the
role of social welfare and its impact.

^ it's last prediction was correct, too.

hyperborean

mollymosfet wrote: »

I really think any calls to reduce welfare further are purely ideology driven, and by an unpleasant one at that. Consistently we're compared to the UK which has extraordinarily low levels of social welfare.

http://www.eapn.ie/documents/1_Social%20Welfare%20How%20Ireland%20Compares%20in%20Europe.pdf

In fact our overall spending on Social Protection is very low.



^ it's last prediction was correct, too.

http://www.welfare.ie/en/downloads/budfact13.pdf

Over 20bn being spent on social protection, this is nearly 60% of tax take, I might be wrong but I dont think any other country in Europe is using 60% of its total incoming on Social Protection,

That document is rubbish

juan.kerr

mollymosfet wrote: »

I really think any calls to reduce welfare further are purely ideology driven

Ironic that the people who wrote the report are probably more ideology driven. Or is it that you don't mind, as long as it's your own ideology?

And I'm not sure of the relevance of a 2009 document in 2013.

ParkRunner

As long as it is possible to live a reasonably comfortable life being completely dependent on welfare, this recession is going to be prolonged unnecessarily.

Joan Burton is doing a pretty good job reforming and restructuring welfare payments to encourage people off welfare, but the net income available from many jobs out there is still not attractive enough when compared to welfare payments, especially taking into account the cost of actually going to work in my opinion

mollymosfet

hyperborean wrote: »

http://www.welfare.ie/en/downloads/budfact13.pdf

Over 20bn being spent on social protection, this is nearly 60% of tax take, I might be wrong but I dont think any other country in Europe is using 60% of its total incoming on Social Protection,

That document is rubbish

That's because of the extremely high rate of unemployment. Also, not all the money towards welfare comes from the tax take, as PRSI is not counted.

Did you even read the document?

juan.kerr wrote: »

Ironic that the people who wrote the report are probably more ideology driven. Or is it that you don't mind, as long as it's your own ideology?

And I'm not sure of the relevance of a 2009 document in 2013.

Would you care to disprove it instead of making excuses? Not much has changed from 2009 except more BS austerity measures and morally bankrupt right wing apologism.

mollymosfet

EF wrote: »

As long as it is possible to live a reasonably comfortable life being completely dependent on welfare, this recession is going to be prolonged unnecessarily.

Joan Burton is doing a pretty good job reforming and restructuring welfare payments to encourage people off welfare, but the net income available from many jobs out there is still not attractive enough when compared to welfare payments, especially taking into account the cost of actually going to work in my opinion

Welfare is not what caused the recession. High welfare rates are a symptom of it. I cannot believe the ignorance behind saying that welfare is too high and that makes jobs unattractive, when the vast majority of people on welfare currently are out of work and want to work, but only so many jobs are going at any one time.

Welfare is a boost to the economy as it's a natural cash injection to keep things flowing at the lower levels. Cut it(or minimum wage) and local economies take a hit. It's one of the reasons that the UK has such vicious inner city poverty. Joan Burton is doing a good job of being an amoral monster, hitting the most vulnerable in society. Many right wingers are social darwinists so do not care for the livelihoods or even lives of the marginalised. The Tories in the UK are a great example of this.

If you want to encourage people off welfare, you create jobs.

hyperborean

mollymosfet wrote: »

That's because of the extremely high rate of unemployment. Also, not all the money towards welfare comes from the tax take, as PRSI is not counted.

Did you even read the document?



Would you care to disprove it instead of making excuses? Not much has changed from 2009 except more BS austerity measures and morally bankrupt right wing apologism.

PRSI doesn't count in what? The country has about 36bn to use for health, education, social protection, civil service, infrastructure.....etc

To use 60% of that pie for social protection is beyond stupid,

Valmont

mollymosfet wrote: »

If you want to encourage people off welfare, you create jobs.

Free money or a low-paying job. I think I know what option most would choose!

Valmont

mollymosfet wrote: »

Welfare is a boost to the economy as it's a natural cash injection to keep things flowing at the lower levels. Cut it(or minimum wage) and local economies take a hit.

Welfare does not boost the economy. It is first extracted from the economy then pumped back into it minus the costs of the bureaucracy. It is an absolute net loss whether it is borrowed, printed, or produced directly from taxation.

ParkRunner

mollymosfet wrote: »

If you want to encourage people off welfare, you create jobs.

Perhaps those receiving welfare could take the initiative and create the jobs themselves? I agree with you to a point that growth and not more austerity is not what we need but there is still a big enough exchequer deficit to justify further cuts to welfare, if even to fund job creation measures to boost the economy.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

The long and the short of it is that many employers, especially in the hospitality industry, are having to bring in foreign workers to fill positions because they can't get people off of welfare to fill them. Just take a look at inward migration figures, our attractive welfare rates (relative to minimum wage incomes) are keeping people on the live register. These are not my opinions, they are facts, and until the rates take a bit of a trimming or some sort of welfare income limit is put on a family unit, these trends will continue.

mollymosfet

hyperborean wrote: »

PRSI doesn't count in what? The country has about 36bn to use for health, education, social protection, civil service, infrastructure.....etc

To use 60% of that pie for social protection is beyond stupid,

Again, read the article.

mollymosfet

Valmont wrote: »

Welfare does not boost the economy. It is first extracted from the economy then pumped back into it minus the costs of the bureaucracy. It is an absolute net loss whether it is borrowed, printed, or produced directly from taxation.

This is untrue. For example the recent study showing they expecting 50% to be taken out of the economy for every €1 in cut spending, and found it to be more like 150%. It works the other way around too.

Welfare is fundamentally the same as a cash stimulus.

It is provided from taxation, but in a progressive tax system those that can afford to pay, and therefore are less likely to spend directly into the economy right away, pay the brunt of it.

When you start cutting welfare it starts a snowball effect as well. The effect of local shops closing down and the likes has a huge impact on social mobility.

We need to get past the wealthy = job creators myth.

Valmont

mollymosfet wrote: »

We need to get past the wealthy = job creators myth.

Not the wealthy per se; there would be no jobs anywhere were it not for the accumulation and then investment of capital. All taxation, money printing, and borrowing on behalf of future taxation does is drain the economy of capital needed to create employment opportunities. Continuing welfare on its current path is just going to destroy the Irish economy by preventing the investment of capital needed to return us to sustainable growth and prosperity.

Guy:Incognito

mollymosfet wrote: »

Consistently we're compared to the UK which has extraordinarily low levels of social welfare.

.

Seems to be no objections when people constantly compare us to the UK for things like tax on cars etc..........

woodoo

Nobody here is complaining that when you become unemployed you get a decent rate of welfare. The problem in Ireland is that you continue to get that good rate of welfare year after year and even decade after decade if you don't find work.

Do other EU countries offer this sort of never ending welfare?

dahamsta

EF wrote: »

As long as it is possible to live a reasonably comfortable life being completely dependent on welfare...

Textbook parrotry from someone that's never had to live on welfare.

Broxi_Bear_Eire

dahamsta wrote: »

Textbook parrotry from someone that's never had to live on welfare.

Certainly sounds like it to me. I am on disability after working from the age of 15 I am 58 now. It is anything but comfortable every cent has to be accounted for it is no life of luxury

juan.kerr

OP, do a search for the word deficit in the PDF. How many occurrences? Zero.

That tells me all I need to know about the document and it's relevance to the real world.

KyussBishop

The problem is this:

That's not even enough jobs to take on 4% of the unemployed.

Since private industry is failing to provide adequate jobs, it's either government (with ECB help through money creation; not added on to our debt) providing temporary employment as employer of last resort, through infrastructure projects and similar programs, or waiting the best part of a decade or more for private industry to recover by itself (which entails sitting through a lot of economic/social destruction, harming and contributing to the deaths and damaged health of a very large amount of people).

Money printing does not drain society of capital either; almost all arguments trying to make that link, rely upon the Quantity Theory of Money, which is debunked (summary: QTM requires money supply changes to be proportional to inflation, where in reality they are less-than proportional for low-inflation countries, and more-than proportional in high-inflation countries), or alternatively, relies upon arguments against printing money that have a veiled support for a deflationary economy (which is a whole different line of discussion, and is easily shown to be very regressive, causing the burden for those with debts to rise over time, in addition to interest).

hyperborean

KyussBishop wrote: »

The problem is this:

That's not even enough jobs to take on 4% of the unemployed.

Since private industry is failing to provide adequate jobs, it's either government (with ECB help through money creation; not added on to our debt) providing temporary employment as employer of last resort, through infrastructure projects and similar programs, or waiting the best part of a decade or more for private industry to recover by itself (which entails sitting through a lot of economic/social destruction, harming and contributing to the deaths and damaged health of a very large amount of people).

Money printing does not drain society of capital either; almost all arguments trying to make that link, rely upon the Quantity Theory of Money, which is debunked (summary: QTM requires money supply changes to be proportional to inflation, where in reality they are less-than proportional for low-inflation countries, and more-than proportional in high-inflation countries), or alternatively, relies upon arguments against printing money that have a veiled support for a deflationary economy (which is a whole different line of discussion, and is easily shown to be very regressive, causing the burden for those with debts to rise over time, in addition to interest).

Or maybe its government policy creating barriers to job creation, maybe legacy issue's like massive social protection costs are part of the problem?

KyussBishop

hyperborean wrote: »

Or maybe its government policy creating barriers to job creation, maybe legacy issue's like massive social protection costs are part of the problem?

If you were saying welfare is dissuading people taking jobs, that is one thing (that would still be shown as false by the lack of jobs I've shown in my post), but you appear to be going a step further and saying government is somehow preventing jobs even becoming available; you don't try to explain any mechanism behind this.

hyperborean

KyussBishop wrote: »

If you were saying welfare is dissuading people taking jobs, that is one thing (that would still be shown as false by the lack of jobs I've shown in my post), but you appear to be going a step further and saying government is somehow preventing jobs even becoming available; you don't try to explain any mechanism behind this.

Using 60% of your pocket money for polishing the moral ego is not going to feed the fans of job creation, if anything it stifles growth, the money could be better targeted,,,, hardship manifest itself more than babysitting.

Basically, if you need social assistance its not for sky tv or superman forbid a holiday in lanzarote its for eating and comfort.

You could pretend to be ignorant and say"no way people on the scratcher are comfortable" but then I wouldn't bother replying to your post and I know how you love to debate!

KyussBishop

hyperborean wrote: »

Using 60% of your pocket money for polishing the moral ego is not going to feed the fans of job creation, if anything it stifles growth, the money could be better targeted,,,, hardship manifest itself more than babysitting.

Basically, if you need social assistance its not for sky tv or superman forbid a holiday in lanzarote its for eating and comfort.

You could pretend to be ignorant and say"no way people on the scratcher are comfortable" but then I wouldn't bother replying to your post and I know how you love to debate!

Right, so you've failed to explain how it is preventing jobs being made available.

In either case, I'm advocating a set of policies that definitely will create jobs, and will restore private industry over time as well, so that private industry reabsorbs all workers.

You can even end unemployment too if you like (and all taxes associated with it), and leave people to pick and choose between the job program or looking for jobs in private industry (not a policy I'd advocate, but not one that is incompatible with the general policy I lay out).

hyperborean

KyussBishop wrote: »

Right, so you've failed to explain how it is preventing jobs being made available.

In either case, I'm advocating a set of policies that definitely will create jobs, and will restore private industry over time as well, so that private industry reabsorbs all workers.

You can even end unemployment too if you like (and all taxes associated with it), and leave people to pick and choose between the job program or looking for jobs in private industry (not a policy I'd advocate, but not one that is incompatible with the general policy I lay out).

Ok, you have my interest

Lay it out there comrade,

Farmer Pudsey

One of the reasons that we cannot create jobs is that it costs too much. At low pay levels employers compete with social welfare. Take the last budget a family ( 2kids) on social welfare lost 240euro's while an equivlent low paid working family lost at least 750 euro's if both working and you can add extra car tax and transport costs onto that. So now an employer has to make up this difference.

The other issue with welfare in Ireland is that the benifits increase the longer you are on welfare. So if you are on welfare 2-3 years there is a disencentive to take a job because if you become unemployed again you have to restart and regain all the extra benifits. The other issue is that in lowpaid situtations if a either of the breadwinners are unemployed then they are as well off if not better off if both are unemployed.

This theory that governments can create longterm real employment is a myth. We tried this in the late seventies and early eighties and it
created more problems than it solved. Governments can only really create the envoirment that will allow employers, enterpreurs and buisness people an opportunity to expand or open new ventures and thereby employ more people.

We defenitly have an issue with Irish people being willing to leave welfare to take lowpaid jobs alot of these seem to be either filled by non-nationals, students working part time or some young unskilled workers that do not recieve the full rate of benifit.

We also have an issue with lifestye choices. If you decide to leave home in your early twenties and are unemployed the state picks up a lot of your accomdation costs, it is the same if a person decides to become a single parent again the state will subsdise there accomdation. So a teenager can decide to have one or two childern and then seek the state to provide accomdation so that they become independant of other people.

An employer has to compete with all this it means that if you try to create jobs these jobs must create enough money/wealth to justlfy them. The minimum wage is really a floor for students and non nationals while welfare provides a much higher income floor for other workers.

yosemite_sam

I have never lived on welfare but I look around me and see those that do enjoying a better standard of living than I do.

areyawell

yosemite_sam wrote: »

I have never lived on welfare but I look around me and see those that do enjoying a better standard of living than I do.

188 quid a week, rent allowance. How could you not live on it.

People living at home with parents for 188 a week.

Facebook statues of people with cars, going on holidays to florida, been able to save for australia, so yea, Welfare is extremely high.

murphaph

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

The other issue with welfare in Ireland is that the benifits increase the longer you are on welfare. So if you are on welfare 2-3 years there is a disencentive to take a job because if you become unemployed again you have to restart and regain all the extra benifits.

Crucial point there. It should be the reverse of course. You should have a solid safety net to fall into upon becoming unemployed, that gradually tapers off to a meagre level. In Germany you have such a system and indeed once you're on the meagre money, you must do community work etc. if you can't/won't find a real job. If you refuse, you lose ALL benefits and will end up homeless.

I think we need to move towards this in Ireland: help those who need it and are willing to help themselves and anyone else can sing for it.

woodoo

murphaph wrote: »

Crucial point there. It should be the reverse of course. You should have a solid safety net to fall into upon becoming unemployed, that gradually tapers off to a meagre level. In Germany you have such a system and indeed once you're on the meagre money, you must do community work etc. if you can't/won't find a real job. If you refuse, you lose ALL benefits and will end up homeless.

I think we need to move towards this in Ireland: help those who need it and are willing to help themselves and anyone else can sing for it.

We can't even get as far as a national discussion on that. There is an army of people from sinn fein to quangos to special interest groups to charities that will shout that it is an attack on the most vulnerable. Sadly even the opposition parties of the day will jump on the "most vulnerable" bandwagon.

Sleepy

KyussBishop wrote: »

Right, so you've failed to explain how it is preventing jobs being made available.

Assuming you don't expect private industry to hire people for no end, those workers who would take the low paid jobs were their welfare payments not so high will contribute towards the growth of those private enterprises.

As enterprises grow, they require more and more employees, making more and more profits, reducing the numbers on the dole queues, growing our economy, reducing our deficit and, with time (and fiscal restraint from future governments), bringing us back into a position of surplus rather than deficit.

Governments can't create employment beyond that which the private sector can support with it's taxes: only the environment for the private sector to create them.

areyawell

Basically the economy is fricked and theres not much to be done. Ireland has to be worst country to take on graduates. Graduates expect 25k wage but should be struck down to minimum wage or slightly less, even 280 a week tax free for first year of employment on graduate schemes. Company's pay 230 a week and government pay 50 a week. Its better than them sitting at home on 144 quid doing nothing. There should be a sight set up a site like jobbridge for this because the way the system is working, its just not. Also the miserable amount of companies that offered jobridge schemes is shocking.

Good loser

mollymosfet wrote: »

That's because of the extremely high rate of unemployment. Also, not all the money towards welfare comes from the tax take, as PRSI is not counted.

Did you even read the document?



Would you care to disprove it instead of making excuses? Not much has changed from 2009 except more BS austerity measures and morally bankrupt right wing apologism.

When the numbers on welfare increase it is perfectly reasonable to reduce the rates/levels. The burden on the non welfare classes should be reduced in a recession - not increased.

dahamsta

yosemite_sam wrote: »

I have never lived on welfare but I look around me and see those that do enjoying a better standard of living than I do.

It's lucky we made them wear those yellow stars so you could discern them from everyone else.

hfallada

What is so weird about welfare in Ireland compared to countries such as Germany is that everyone gets the same welfare as in unemployment benefit and pension regardless of their contribution to the PRSI.

Meaning the hard working person who pays a **** load of PRSI compared to the person who earns €8.65 an hour and pays little an PRSI but both get the same pension. I told German this at a party and they just could not understand it and even got another German with better english to check they understood me.

Unemployment should 70% of the wage of your previous job for 6-12 months with each repayment declining slowly. Meaning low income people work in jobs paying €8.65 as opposed to sitting on their arse better off on social welfare.

Ireland just doesnt need a little welfare cutting here and there but a total reform of the system encouraging work and ending dependence on the state. I know there is a recession but a system overhaul will take years to put in place and they should start now

ArtSmart

murphaph wrote: »

Crucial point there. It should be the reverse of course. You should have a solid safety net to fall into upon becoming unemployed, that gradually tapers off to a meagre level. In Germany you have such a system and indeed once you're on the meagre money, you must do community work etc. if you can't/won't find a real job. If you refuse, you lose ALL benefits and will end up homeless.

I think we need to move towards this in Ireland: help those who need it and are willing to help themselves and anyone else can sing for it.

but supposing your singing voice has been compromised by health deterioration as a result of homelessness?

will the state provide singing lessons or not?

Well?

starlit

They are constantly reducing them. They were low at first then increased them but each year they are gradually decreasing the amount.

AlekSmart

hyperborean wrote: »

PRSI doesn't count in what? The country has about 36bn to use for health, education, social protection, civil service, infrastructure.....etc

To use 60% of that pie for social protection is beyond stupid,

This Report is quoted by the OP as if it represents some new and independent thinking about our Country's current situation.

However the EAPN (whom I must confess to being totally unaware of until this thread) does not,to my eyes,represent anything like an Independent Unbiased view...so I'll use a liberal amount of salt during my digestion.

Speaking of pies,the one I found most interesting was this rather nice looking eapn pie....

http://www.eapn.ie/eapn/about/how-we-are-funded

98% out of the Public Purse ...(EU or National,it matters not)
2% From other sources.

I'll stick with Joan Burton for the moment...;)

ParkRunner

dahamsta wrote: »

Textbook parrotry from someone that's never had to live on welfare.

You are incorrect, I did have to live on welfare for about 6 months between jobs but boredom got the better of me (not financial suffering). My point however is that it still remains a lifestyle choice to remain unemployed long term and be provided with a fairly good standard of living c/o the State.

Cavehill Red

hyperborean wrote: »

Or maybe its government policy creating barriers to job creation, maybe legacy issue's like massive social protection costs are part of the problem?

Yeh, that would explain why all the other similarly affected countries are places like the Baltic states and Iberia, with their famously generous historical social welfare provision.
:rolleyes:

KyussBishop

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

One of the reasons that we cannot create jobs is that it costs too much. At low pay levels employers compete with social welfare. Take the last budget a family ( 2kids) on social welfare lost 240euro's while an equivlent low paid working family lost at least 750 euro's if both working and you can add extra car tax and transport costs onto that. So now an employer has to make up this difference.

The other issue with welfare in Ireland is that the benifits increase the longer you are on welfare. So if you are on welfare 2-3 years there is a disencentive to take a job because if you become unemployed again you have to restart and regain all the extra benifits. The other issue is that in lowpaid situtations if a either of the breadwinners are unemployed then they are as well off if not better off if both are unemployed.

This theory that governments can create longterm real employment is a myth. We tried this in the late seventies and early eighties and it
created more problems than it solved. Governments can only really create the envoirment that will allow employers, enterpreurs and buisness people an opportunity to expand or open new ventures and thereby employ more people.

We defenitly have an issue with Irish people being willing to leave welfare to take lowpaid jobs alot of these seem to be either filled by non-nationals, students working part time or some young unskilled workers that do not recieve the full rate of benifit.

We also have an issue with lifestye choices. If you decide to leave home in your early twenties and are unemployed the state picks up a lot of your accomdation costs, it is the same if a person decides to become a single parent again the state will subsdise there accomdation. So a teenager can decide to have one or two childern and then seek the state to provide accomdation so that they become independant of other people.

An employer has to compete with all this it means that if you try to create jobs these jobs must create enough money/wealth to justlfy them. The minimum wage is really a floor for students and non nationals while welfare provides a much higher income floor for other workers.

The 70's isn't like what I advocated, straight away because I don't advocate permanent jobs; government is perfectly capable of providing the temporary employment program I laid out, with the help of the ECB.

What your advocating is decimating wages all through our economy, which is a very destructive course of action, as proven by Latvia and other baltic states that have been destroyed economically and socially by that policy.
You don't 'fix' the economy by causing massive economic/social harm, and knocking people down to subsistence levels of pay.


There's no reason at all why such a destructive and punitive course of action should be taken, when it's perfectly possible to maintain wages close to their current rate and have government temporarily take up the slack, with ECB help; no unemployment, no emigration, no significant reduction in quality of living, and along with other complimentary policies, brings the economy back to a healthy state faster than any punitive austerity policies.

If the private sector fails to provide adequate jobs, and the cost of letting the private sector sort it out is decimation of wages to subsistence levels and significantly worsened quality of life, along with all the other economic/social damage involved, then government has to step in to help people out, and prevent such massive destruction to the economy and society.

The temporary public jobs are complimentary to the private sector as well, as it prevents further damage to the economy, and even pumps the private sector back up to full employment by the end of the program, with nobody left in the public job program; win win for everyone.


The grand majority of the unemployed are perfectly willing to work; lets give them the jobs they need. You can even sort out those unwilling to work, by offering them a decent job, and kicking them off if they keep refusing; we can sort things out for those willing to work, and sort out the scroungers.

KyussBishop

Sleepy wrote: »

Assuming you don't expect private industry to hire people for no end, those workers who would take the low paid jobs were their welfare payments not so high will contribute towards the growth of those private enterprises.

As enterprises grow, they require more and more employees, making more and more profits, reducing the numbers on the dole queues, growing our economy, reducing our deficit and, with time (and fiscal restraint from future governments), bringing us back into a position of surplus rather than deficit.

Governments can't create employment beyond that which the private sector can support with it's taxes: only the environment for the private sector to create them.

Well, government can create jobs beyond taxes with ECB help though, as explained in my post here, and this doesn't have to contribute to our national debt or anything.

The policy you're describing there is a decimation of wages, which as I described in my post above, is an extremely harmful course of action, whereas the policies I put forward don't cause any such harm, and bring the economy to recovery much faster.

323

Broxi_Bear_Eire wrote: »

Certainly sounds like it to me. I am on disability after working from the age of 15 I am 58 now. It is anything but comfortable every cent has to be accounted for it is no life of luxury

Don't want to belittle your situation, but the fact that you worked all that time is your problem.
When same happened my dad, remember a neighbor telling my mum that he would have to find work because - "he has always worked and therefore has no idea how to work the system"

Broxi_Bear_Eire

323 wrote: »

Don't want to belittle your situation, but the fact that you worked all that time is your problem.
When same happened my dad, remember a neighbor telling my mum that he would have to find work because - "he has always worked and therefore has no idea how to work the system"

Really so I should have learned to work the system. I reckon that is the problem to many people are as you put it "working the system". I don't want to be dependent on the system and its about time the people who cheat the system were weeded out. To many people who should not be receiving welfare are especially in areas like mine rural areas where people working in the welfare offices are friendly with people claiming what they shouldn't. But they won't investigate them for that reason.
I don't want enough to go on holidays but I would like enough to be able to have heat and food not one or the other

Icepick

The paper is based on a false premise because focusing on other countries is pointless.
If the UK, for example, had the same welfare rates, it wouldn't make ours any more reasonable.

The paper is obviously biased coming from the poverty industry involuntarily funded by the tax payer.

ResearchWill

Interesting document, I find it interesting that all the data seems to be 2006, 2007 or 2008. For example Table 8 Social Protection Expenditure in EU 15 2006. It lists Ireland's Social Protection Spending as 18.2% of GDP by 2009 it had risen to 27.9% and I assume still rising.

One can not debate this issue with figures that are from a boom period. The EAPN report was released in September 2009.

Farmer Pudsey

KyussBishop wrote: »

The 70's isn't like what I advocated, straight away because I don't advocate permanent jobs; government is perfectly capable of providing the temporary employment program I laid out, with the help of the ECB.

What your advocating is decimating wages all through our economy, which is a very destructive course of action, as proven by Latvia and other baltic states that have been destroyed economically and socially by that policy.
You don't 'fix' the economy by causing massive economic/social harm, and knocking people down to subsistence levels of pay.


There's no reason at all why such a destructive and punitive course of action should be taken, when it's perfectly possible to maintain wages close to their current rate and have government temporarily take up the slack, with ECB help; no unemployment, no emigration, no significant reduction in quality of living, and along with other complimentary policies, brings the economy back to a healthy state faster than any punitive austerity policies.

If the private sector fails to provide adequate jobs, and the cost of letting the private sector sort it out is decimation of wages to subsistence levels and significantly worsened quality of life, along with all the other economic/social damage involved, then government has to step in to help people out, and prevent such massive destruction to the economy and society.

The temporary public jobs are complimentary to the private sector as well, as it prevents further damage to the economy, and even pumps the private sector back up to full employment by the end of the program, with nobody left in the public job program; win win for everyone.


The grand majority of the unemployed are perfectly willing to work; lets give them the jobs they need. You can even sort out those unwilling to work, by offering them a decent job, and kicking them off if they keep refusing; we can sort things out for those willing to work, and sort out the scroungers.

In theory your plan has merit Kyuss however how long would it be before scroungers started to work the system. At what wage level would these jobs be created at and if the ECB creates money how do we stop the Italian Mafia and the Greeks from working the system and destroying the European banking system as we create endless money. If these jobs are created by the government in public work and support schemes unless they pay way less that you would get in a real job how do you encourage people to take employment opportunties that occur in the real economy. Also the government would need to fund the capital cost of the work as well as the jobs. This would lead to a tendancy to undercapitalise the works so that the level of work involved required to earn your wages would be less than the real economy. So for some(not all) worker the tendancy would be to remain on the scheme. We see this where some long term unemployed use CE and training schemes to remain on benifit.

I take your point that the majority of unemployed are willing to work however few will take a job that at the end of the week will leave them with less money than if they remain on welfare. It would be the same with jobs paid for by money creation if they were good quality well paid jobs some of those employed would make sure not to find work in the real economy if it was available. This happen at present where a lot of unemployed people would not consider jobs in Fast food providers and other lowpaid work. Another issue would be that workers would feel entitled to ajob near home and this would create issue around labour mobility.

I do not advacote a race to the bottom or to people on unemployment being on subsistance living however we have a real issue with competition between Welfare and working wages. We also have an issue with an entitlment culture

It is impossible for the government or the ECB to step in and provide endless employment I know you stress that these would be tempory but history tells us that trying to get some workers to move from these jobs to real jobs would be impossible. Money creation can only be a tempory injection then you need the real economy to be able to expand and create wealth so as to create real work. You also need to create jobs that either allow us to export product or replace imported product because in the longterm this is what provides real longterm employment.

In theory the building bubble was a money creation project. At first there was a real demand for housing. When the government gave tax breaks to building it fueled the demand then a preception grew that we could all become wealthy by buying and sellling housing to each other.

This in turn started to fuel wages which effected the real economy it made producing product in Ireland impossible instead of money creation we were borrowing it and even if we created money in that situtation we would have still ended up with a recession.

KyussBishop

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

In theory your plan has merit Kyuss however how long would it be before scroungers started to work the system. At what wage level would these jobs be created at and if the ECB creates money how do we stop the Italian Mafia and the Greeks from working the system and destroying the European banking system as we create endless money. If these jobs are created by the government in public work and support schemes unless they pay way less that you would get in a real job how do you encourage people to take employment opportunties that occur in the real economy. Also the government would need to fund the capital cost of the work as well as the jobs. This would lead to a tendancy to undercapitalise the works so that the level of work involved required to earn your wages would be less than the real economy. So for some(not all) worker the tendancy would be to remain on the scheme. We see this where some long term unemployed use CE and training schemes to remain on benifit.

I take your point that the majority of unemployed are willing to work however few will take a job that at the end of the week will leave them with less money than if they remain on welfare. It would be the same with jobs paid for by money creation if they were good quality well paid jobs some of those employed would make sure not to find work in the real economy if it was available. This happen at present where a lot of unemployed people would not consider jobs in Fast food providers and other lowpaid work. Another issue would be that workers would feel entitled to ajob near home and this would create issue around labour mobility.

Scroungers can't work the system though, as there will be jobs available to them, and if they refuse them they are easily kicked off welfare; it gets rid of scroungers.

How would mafia groups work the system? That seems a fairly outlandish speculation.

The wages would be starting at minimum wage (adjusting it to an acceptable living wage if need be), and workers with extra skills/qualifications could optionally receive increased pay beyond that; since the program will be setting a floor for wages in the economy, it will need to keep such wages at the low-end.

There's no reason any projects would be undercapitalized either, that's another unbacked claim; you seem to be throwing a lot of those at the idea, trying to get something to stick.


The existence of these temporary government jobs depends upon the health of the private sector, not upon peoples willingness to work in the private sector; when there are ample private sector jobs available, the temporary job program winds down, and all the way through the program as the private sector improves, people are pushed back into private work.

The temporary public jobs won't exactly be brilliantly well-paid, since they need to set a floor for wages (i.e. tending towards minimum wage), so if business in the private sector doesn't bother to offer workers a better deal than that (either in wages or work satisfaction, or other quality-of-living perks), then they are going to have to step up their game and make better offers, as other business will compete for the labour, as the private economy is pumped up with money and requires labour to continue expanding.
The economy after all, is there to work for the benefit of people, not for people to work for the benefit of the economy or private business, or to sit around idle waiting for decent work, acting as a sink on wages.

So, the temporary job program doesn't just create a floor on wages in the economy, it creates a floor on quality of life, and on various measures of work-satisfaction for employees; this benefits all workers (and primarily just annoys employers who like to exploit their workers, or just pay them a pittance).

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

I do not advacote a race to the bottom or to people on unemployment being on subsistance living however we have a real issue with competition between Welfare and working wages. We also have an issue with an entitlment culture

It is impossible for the government or the ECB to step in and provide endless employment I know you stress that these would be tempory but history tells us that trying to get some workers to move from these jobs to real jobs would be impossible. Money creation can only be a tempory injection then you need the real economy to be able to expand and create wealth so as to create real work. You also need to create jobs that either allow us to export product or replace imported product because in the longterm this is what provides real longterm employment.

In theory the building bubble was a money creation project. At first there was a real demand for housing. When the government gave tax breaks to building it fueled the demand then a preception grew that we could all become wealthy by buying and sellling housing to each other.

This in turn started to fuel wages which effected the real economy it made producing product in Ireland impossible instead of money creation we were borrowing it and even if we created money in that situtation we would have still ended up with a recession.

The evidence doesn't show a problem between welfare and work though, it shows a failure of private industry to supply enough jobs; there are not even enough jobs on offer to sort out 4% of the unemployment.

The temporary jobs are just as 'real' as any other jobs; there is no such precedent for temporary job programs before, so you saying it would be impossible for workers to move back to private industry is baseless.


The building bubble was nothing like this either, as that was fueled by unsustainable credit/debt in the private banking system, which is not comparable in any way to government spending through money creation; management of credit in the private banking system, is a totally separate discussion/set-of-policies.

coolshannagh28

Brendan Keenan has a good article in todays independent which raises the argument that we pay ourselves too much and I agree with this .Welfare rates are too closely tied to our general elevated standard of living which we obviously cannot afford anymore ,the private sector has learned this lesson the PS has not but eventually will as well.
Our general strategy has been to try to ride out the recession until global growth rates pick up ,this has not materialised so the Troika is going to force us onto plan B which will entail a second bailout but a lower standard of living.
In a way this will be a good thing as our economy will be more competitive as wages fall. A lowering of welare rates will also follow and the trap between our high welfare rates and low wage work will be broken.

Good loser

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

In theory your plan has merit Kyuss however how long would it be before scroungers started to work the system. At what wage level would these jobs be created at and if the ECB creates money how do we stop the Italian Mafia and the Greeks from working the system and destroying the European banking system as we create endless money. If these jobs are created by the government in public work and support schemes unless they pay way less that you would get in a real job how do you encourage people to take employment opportunties that occur in the real economy. Also the government would need to fund the capital cost of the work as well as the jobs. This would lead to a tendancy to undercapitalise the works so that the level of work involved required to earn your wages would be less than the real economy. So for some(not all) worker the tendancy would be to remain on the scheme. We see this where some long term unemployed use CE and training schemes to remain on benifit.

I take your point that the majority of unemployed are willing to work however few will take a job that at the end of the week will leave them with less money than if they remain on welfare. It would be the same with jobs paid for by money creation if they were good quality well paid jobs some of those employed would make sure not to find work in the real economy if it was available. This happen at present where a lot of unemployed people would not consider jobs in Fast food providers and other lowpaid work. Another issue would be that workers would feel entitled to ajob near home and this would create issue around labour mobility.

I do not advacote a race to the bottom or to people on unemployment being on subsistance living however we have a real issue with competition between Welfare and working wages. We also have an issue with an entitlment culture

It is impossible for the government or the ECB to step in and provide endless employment I know you stress that these would be tempory but history tells us that trying to get some workers to move from these jobs to real jobs would be impossible. Money creation can only be a tempory injection then you need the real economy to be able to expand and create wealth so as to create real work. You also need to create jobs that either allow us to export product or replace imported product because in the longterm this is what provides real longterm employment.

In theory the building bubble was a money creation project. At first there was a real demand for housing. When the government gave tax breaks to building it fueled the demand then a preception grew that we could all become wealthy by buying and sellling housing to each other.

This in turn started to fuel wages which effected the real economy it made producing product in Ireland impossible instead of money creation we were borrowing it and even if we created money in that situtation we would have still ended up with a recession.

Good post.

The EU already printed money and gave it to us - €32 billion in fact. We were to pay it back at €3.1 bn per annum. Except we're renaging.

Would they repeat the mistake?

Farmer Pudsey

KyussBishop wrote: »

Scroungers can't work the system though, as there will be jobs available to them, and if they refuse them they are easily kicked off welfare; it gets rid of scroungers.

How would mafia groups work the system? That seems a fairly outlandish speculation.

The wages would be starting at minimum wage (adjusting it to an acceptable living wage if need be), and workers with extra skills/qualifications could optionally receive increased pay beyond that; since the program will be setting a floor for wages in the economy, it will need to keep such wages at the low-end.

There's no reason any projects would be undercapitalized either, that's another unbacked claim; you seem to be throwing a lot of those at the idea, trying to get something to stick.


The existence of these temporary government jobs depends upon the health of the private sector, not upon peoples willingness to work in the private sector; when there are ample private sector jobs available, the temporary job program winds down, and all the way through the program as the private sector improves, people are pushed back into private work.

The temporary public jobs won't exactly be brilliantly well-paid, since they need to set a floor for wages (i.e. tending towards minimum wage), so if business in the private sector doesn't bother to offer workers a better deal than that (either in wages or work satisfaction, or other quality-of-living perks), then they are going to have to step up their game and make better offers, as other business will compete for the labour, as the private economy is pumped up with money and requires labour to continue expanding.
The economy after all, is there to work for the benefit of people, not for people to work for the benefit of the economy or private business, or to sit around idle waiting for decent work, acting as a sink on wages.

So, the temporary job program doesn't just create a floor on wages in the economy, it creates a floor on quality of life, and on various measures of work-satisfaction for employees; this benefits all workers (and primarily just annoys employers who like to exploit their workers, or just pay them a pittance).


The evidence doesn't show a problem between welfare and work though, it shows a failure of private industry to supply enough jobs; there are not even enough jobs on offer to sort out 4% of the unemployment.

The temporary jobs are just as 'real' as any other jobs; there is no such precedent for temporary job programs before, so you saying it would be impossible for workers to move back to private industry is baseless.


The building bubble was nothing like this either, as that was fueled by unsustainable credit/debt in the private banking system, which is not comparable in any way to government spending through money creation; management of credit in the private banking system, is a totally separate discussion/set-of-policies.

Kyuss your job creation depends on honesty this is in short supply in the world. It also would only create domestic demand. Breakfast Roll and bouncy castle man would be back but the country would create no real wealth. Public works jobs would not create any new wealth. Yes jobs would be created like in the boom but none in the export sector.

We would again price ourselves out of the tourism sector and the export sector would again have to compete against high artificial wages. Our food and drink export industry would again be under pressure as artificial domestic demand like during the Tiger make these companies uncompeditive.

In Greece as jobs are created the government would again refuse to reform the economy and Italy,Spain and Portagul would continue on there merry way.

Of course these jobs would be under capitalised if public projects were designed to provide jobs the tendancy would be to overemploy so as to reduce the cost/job. You state that there is no reason to undercapitalise when history tells us different. It would also lead to extra PS service jobs to manage these jobs in whose intrest it would be that these jobs continue as long as possible example FAS.

My biggest question is what the work in these job creation schemes would entail. Would it be construction related or health/education related. What jobs would be created for Clerical/legal/accountant. Would these be Tidy towns type jobs or a Hoover dam project.

As you state these jobs would be tending towards the minimum wages if trades people were involved in these jobs the unions would demand full rate, if unemployed teacher/nurses were put working in Schools/hospitals the unions would claim that these teachers/nurses are cheap labour especially if class sizes were increased.

TBH Kyuss while I believe that the ECB monetary policy should use an element of quantive easing large scale money creation would be a recipe for disaster. I see little point in debating this further as your's is a Socialist/Union theory that jobs should be created for there own sake. You also show a level of distrust of the private sector that I do not share.