Average Cost of living

Dingle_berry

I'm no economist so I've no idea about this but does the government/CSO or some other body calculate the cost of living in Ireland for residents? Do they draw up a sort of "minimum budget" and make decisions like value of job seekers allowance based on it? Or is it all just figures pulled out of the air?

I think I remember hearing at the time of the personal insolvency bill about guidelines recommending a minimum cost of living but can't find them now

Apologies if this is in the wrong place!

antoobrien

Dingle_berry wrote: »

I'm no economist so I've no idea about this but does the government/CSO or some other body calculate the cost of living in Ireland for residents? Do they draw up a sort of "minimum budget" and make decisions like value of job seekers allowance based on it? Or is it all just figures pulled out of the air?

I think I remember hearing at the time of the personal insolvency bill about guidelines recommending a minimum cost of living but can't find them now

Apologies if this is in the wrong place!

They define "the basics" i.e. accommodation, light & heat, clothing etc. Then they use the various statistical measures of price e.g. CPI to come up with figures.

Things like CPI cover the amount spent, whereas a basic/minimum budget will often refer to a lower value e.g. the €10/€15 per month phone package instead of the average €40 package.

Changes to payments/supports like JSA and other benefits are calculated using changes to CPI and a few dozen criteria.

Dingle_berry

antoobrien wrote: »

They define "the basics" i.e. accommodation, light & heat, clothing etc. Then they use the various statistical measures of price e.g. CPI to come up with figures.

Who would "they" be? The cabinet? A minister? Civil servants. The CPI is maintained by the CSO?

antoobrien wrote: »

Things like CPI cover the amount spent, whereas a basic/minimum budget will often refer to a lower value e.g. the €10/€15 per month phone package instead of the average €40 package.

so the CPI is an average spend and "they" define an amount lower than that as the minimum? Is it decided arbitrarily or by statistical functions like standard deviations or centiles?

Were there guidelines or a sample budget proposed with the new personal insolvency legislation or was it just pat kennys waffle I overheard? I'd be interested to see how a person is expected to spend their JSA/JSB, child benefit, etc. to get a sense of how real all the calculations are or are they just theoretical functions of statistics (stats being "the science of lies" according to my old stats lecturer!)

antoobrien

Dingle_berry wrote: »

Who would "they" be?

That depends on whom is talking/paying. In the case of any social welfare payments "They" is DSP. In the case of public service pay it's PER.

Dingle_berry wrote: »

I'd be interested to see how a person is expected to spend their JSA/JSB, child benefit, etc

Well JSA/JSB is not supposed to be a living wage, so it should be spent on food light & heat etc. If it's being spent on the oft complained about 3 sun holidays a year (how many times have you heard that one?) then there's something wrong.

Child benefit is supposed to be spent on the children, e.g. clothing, footware etc.

Dingle_berry wrote: »

so the CPI is an average spend and "they" define an amount lower than that as the minimum? Is it decided arbitrarily or by statistical functions like standard deviations or centiles?

I'd love to know what you're trying to get at. It's fairly easy to define a minimum standard for something - get the lowest useful price e.g. if a mobile phone is considered a necessity then what is the most basic usable package? If a car is considered a necessity, then should the person be able to afford to run a merc/beamer?

Geuze

The CSO don't release the cost of their hypothetical basket of consumer goods and services.

The CPI is an index which tracks these costs.

http://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/prices/consumerpriceindex/


Mid-Dec 2006: CPI = 100

April 2013: CPI = 106.4

So there has been 6.4% consumer price inflation over 6 years.

Geuze

The Vincentian Partnership has done some work on budgeting.

See here:

http://www.budgeting.ie/


They have a min income calculator:

http://www.misc.ie/

Dingle_berry

antoobrien wrote: »

I'd love to know what you're trying to get at. It's fairly easy to define a minimum standard for something - get the lowest useful price e.g. if a mobile phone is considered a necessity then what is the most basic usable package? If a car is considered a necessity, then should the person be able to afford to run a merc/beamer?

Just curious about it - I've never considered why the JSA/JSB is that it is. I'd like to compare my own spending to it - which would be easier if there was something like a minimum personal budget or some such. I've tried googling different permutations of how job seekers is calculated but all I've found is was to determine eligibility!

BornToKill

Dingle_berry wrote: »

Were there guidelines or a sample budget proposed with the new personal insolvency legislation or was it just pat kennys waffle I overheard?

http://www.isi.gov.ie/en/ISI/Pages/RLE_calculated