Entitlement Culture killing the will to work in Ireland

Idbatterim

The problem is it's too expensive to go to work.

1. Petrol

2. Motor tax costs

3. Car insurance costs.

4. And finally the BIGGIE.... childcare costs.

Id agree with childcare majorly, but even if you do need a car, you can get a small engined bangernomic...

It so depressing, I agree with pretty much all of the above posts, we could post our thoughts here all day long, what I cant get my head around is just how comfortably some can live off the hard work of the rest of us having never contributed anything and how relatively tiny if not non existent the standard of living is, between say a couple with kids who go out and break their balls working v the the wasters. Also the outrageous levels of marginal tax which kicks in at pittance of an amount in the scheme of things, given the levels of welfare and high cost of living here.

There is no way things will chance as long as Labour are in, I dont even know if FG even if they had a majority, would be prepared to tackle some of the issues...

Geuze

Johnnycabs wrote: »

If I could add another dimension and suggestion to this debate...

There is a difference of about €10 a week between contributory and non-contributory pension, which I find astounding. Its a tough call as to how to tackle this, and no government would dare bring in something in the short term for fear of their own seats. But I think a significant drop in non-contributory pension could be a popular measure if it had the following elements;

1. it didnt affect current pensioners
2. a long enough lead-in time was flagged to allow anyone currently not qualifying a chance to build up the stamps

- i'm not talking 5-10 years, I'm thinking long term => 25-30 years into the future, a 50% reduction in support for lifetime non-contributors, stepped back gradually according to number of stamps. So if announced now, it would only affect those under 45. I think that would be a real incentive for anyone inclined not to bother working from the time they leave school to the time they die (60-70 years).

Simpler alternative - don't increase the non-con SP from the current 219, and let future inflation eat away at its real value. No need for cuts to nominal value.

Meanwhile, link the cont SP to PRSI conts and to the price level.


Yes, your point is well made - you want a situation where people want to work and pay PRSI.

Idbatterim

Simpler alternative - don't increase the non-con SP from the current 219, and let future inflation eat away at its real value. No need for cuts to nominal value.

Meanwhile, link the cont SP to PRSI conts and to the price level.


Yes, your point is well made - you want people to want to pay PRSI.
Geuze is online now Report Post

exactly I have advocated that here before, just freeze it and let inflation do the dirty work, politically it is far more palatable, also if I was FG or Labour, I definitely wouldnt target the pensioners again before the next election, just pay some bull**** lip service to them... One of the biggest pitys was that we werent in a slightly worse scenario debt wise, where we couldnt have just skirted around reform or avoided it all together, well see what happens when we go back to the markets, one half of me would love to see us priced out of them again, the other half questions whether Id be able for even more of this ****! The only way I can see any reform or proper change is a crisis, there is no way the turkeys here will vote for christmas...

If I could add another dimension and suggestion to this debate...

There is a difference of about €10 a week between contributory and non-contributory pension, which I find astounding. Its a tough call as to how to tackle this, and no government would dare bring in something in the short term for fear of their own seats. But I think a significant drop in non-contributory pension could be a popular measure if it had the following elements;

1. it didnt affect current pensioners
2. a long enough lead-in time was flagged to allow anyone currently not qualifying a chance to build up the stamps

- i'm not talking 5-10 years, I'm thinking long term => 25-30 years into the future, a 50% reduction in support for lifetime non-contributors, stepped back gradually according to number of stamps. So if announced now, it would only affect those under 45. I think that would be a real incentive for anyone inclined not to bother working from the time they leave school to the time they die (60-70 years).

I agree and have thought the same myself. I will also add child benefit to that, say 1 year from now, it is announced that all fathers names will have to be on the birth cert, they will also have to pay a % of their dole or salary to the mother until the kid is 18 (in the case of single mothers), on top of that if the mother isnt currently working (or hasnt done so up until very recently), have any cash benefits slashed to virtually zero, at the end of the day, all they want is the free house and to leech off the state, they care about that far more than bringing a child into the world, make sure that the irresponsible will be far worse off, it they choose to be irresponsible, i.e. not able to afford to bring up a kid, without the help of those working, some of whom cant even afford one themselves!

I'm in the states once or twice a year, get chatting to quite a few americans, ( a lot of them would be well educated and with good jobs and comfortable enough) and their attitude is F**K off and earn it yourself, in relation to their taxes being spent on those not working etc, and to be honest I can see exactly where they are coming from...

skafish

clairefontaine wrote: »

The problem is it's too expensive to go to work.

1. Petrol

2. Motor tax costs

3. Car insurance costs.

4. And finally the BIGGIE.... childcare costs.

And here you have the proof of the pudding. The people who do go to work have the same issues with motoring costs, and many or most of us are faced with childcare costs. But it doesn't stop us going to work.

It is this kind of attitude that shows that SW levels are too high.

The_Honeybadger

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

you're the one who claimed it...
it's an easy option for most to walk, cycle or use PT to get to work, most don't due to laziness. if you are living more than 20-30km from your work place it's your own fault.

Aside from not having children there are other ways around childcare and it's a narrow band of people who require this before the kids are old enough to be in school anyway. If it's really that expensive then surely having one parent at home makes sense, or a relative?

Are you serious? Have you any idea how difficult it is to raise a family on an average wage in this country? Most families need both parents working. As for using public transport that is all very well in Dublin but try depending on in anywhere else in the country, it doesn't exist and if it does it is likely inconvenient and undependable. Also people change jobs more regularly than in the past making it difficult to plan where you live around work. Once kids start school it's difficult to move. Maybe you are lucky in your personal situation, good for you!

Please direct me towards this utopia where two people can get jobs within a stones throw of their home and have granny minding the kids, that's not reality for most people.

clairefontaine

skafish wrote: »

And here you have the proof of the pudding. The people who do go to work have the same issues with motoring costs, and many or most of us are faced with childcare costs. But it doesn't stop us going to work.

It is this kind of attitude that shows that SW levels are too high.

It may not stop you, but it stops many.

murphaph

DanDan6592 wrote: »

Why? Why should someone with no children essentially be punished for not having any?

I suppose because this generation needs children to be the taxpayers of the future to pay taxes to pay the pensions of all citizens, parents or otherwise.

Cookie_Monster

murphaph wrote: »

I suppose because this generation needs children to be the taxpayers of the future to pay taxes to pay the pensions of all citizens, parents or otherwise.

there are plenty of people in the world without the need to produce countless more just because. We can simply import workers if needed, much like we did during the boom and when the EU borders opened up

TheBrewMeister

We have a virtual epidemic here in the States. People here get more and more welfare money with every child. They have literally figured out how to never work. They collect their Tax-payer-funded house, their Tax-payer funded food stamps, their Tax-payer funded "Obamaphone," and they literally sit around on their front steps while their 8 kids run the neighborhood and break into cars and other property. The "baby-daddy" never signs a birth cert, so he can sly into the house with them. (these are the people skewing the gun-violence statistics.)

Probably more than half are on crack-cocaine or heroin. Which really burns us because we HAVE to pass drug tests to get a job to pay the taxes that they collect without having to pass a drug test. How ridiculous is that?

The simple fact is this, as long as there is welfare to be had, there will be people lazy enough to live happily in that level of poverty to collect it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for providing temporary housing and food, job placement assistance to those in need. I believe we are a wealthy enough society that there should be no one sleeping on the street. But, assistance is just that - assistance. It's a temporary supplement to ensure they don't die while searching for their next place of employment.

I'm moving to Ireland in 2 months and I'm really not looking forward to paying those taxes >(

Here's another question: how many people are on the dole, yet doing what we call "under the table" work? Meaning, earning money the gov't doesn't know about?

Scortho

I'd stay in the states...it's worse here and at least you're breweries produce hoppy beers! :pac:

TheBrewMeister

Scortho wrote: »

I'd stay in the states...it's worse here and at least you're breweries produce hoppy beers! :pac:

So will one of yours, once I get there

Scortho

TheBrewMeister wrote: »

So will one of yours, once I get there

I'm open to samplers!:) are you starting yourself or working for one already established? If the latter I'm going to guess the fw, but I could be miles off!

166man

clairefontaine wrote: »

The problem is it's too expensive to go to work.

1. Petrol

2. Motor tax costs

3. Car insurance costs.

4. And finally the BIGGIE.... childcare costs.

I have such issues with this post.

Ireland have one if the cheapest fuel costs in Europe and is a country with a noticeably higher average wage than many of it's EU neighbours. Fuel is cheap in Ireland and in the last while it's only gotten cheaper.

Motor tax? It's expensive if you want to drive a big Mercedes alright, buy a small run around and you're paying about €300 a year, if €30 a month is too much for you then you're doing something wrong.

Car insurance? We all have to pay it regardless of whether you're in employment or not, suck it up because there's no alternative.

I won't comment on the childcare costs as I don't know enough about it to make an educated post but your comments on the costs of a car are simply rubbish.

fliball123

166man wrote: »

I have such issues with this post.

Ireland have one if the cheapest fuel costs in Europe and is a country with a noticeably higher average wage than many of it's EU neighbours. Fuel is cheap in Ireland and in the last while it's only gotten cheaper.

Motor tax? It's expensive if you want to drive a big Mercedes alright, buy a small run around and you're paying about €300 a year, if €30 a month is too much for you then you're doing something wrong.

Car insurance? We all have to pay it regardless of whether you're in employment or not, suck it up because there's no alternative.

I won't comment on the childcare costs as I don't know enough about it to make an educated post but your comments on the costs of a car are simply rubbish.

But when it comes to running a car in this country the alternative is a p1ss poor public transport service..

Its not just the price of fuel on top you have VAT, carbon tax, motor tax, insurance, toll roads, getting the car serviced regularly as well as NCTs not to mention the cost of buying the car...

When you stack all of those costs up you are paying an awful lot just to get to work even before you start working.

We should introduce a company model where people can write off costs of working on tax that would not only lessen the burden on those working but it would also encourage people on the dole that it now pays for them to work

murphaph

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

there are plenty of people in the world without the need to produce countless more just because. We can simply import workers if needed, much like we did during the boom and when the EU borders opened up

That is true of course. It is short hop to a discussion on race and immigration from here, but of course such questions can't be ignored if our future plan involves replacing Irish people largely with people from countries that have a surplus of children. Apart from that, with all western countries experiencing collapsing birth rates and the improvement in the economies of the developing world, we might just find that WE are competing for THEM with countries that can offer more than we can. We might just regret not encouraging Irish people to produce Irish offspring with a decent work ethic who feel some attachment to Ireland. We will certainly regret (we already are IMO) encouraging Irish (and non Irish) parents to produce offspring with absolutely no work ethic instilled in them by their parents. It is a ticking time bomb to keep encouraging more and more kids from that section of society that doesn't really see any value in working for your needs and prefers to obtain them at others' expense.

It's not a simple matter at all really.

Thoie

166man wrote: »

I have such issues with this post.

Ireland have one if the cheapest fuel costs in Europe and is a country with a noticeably higher average wage than many of it's EU neighbours. Fuel is cheap in Ireland and in the last while it's only gotten cheaper.

Motor tax? It's expensive if you want to drive a big Mercedes alright, buy a small run around and you're paying about €300 a year, if €30 a month is too much for you then you're doing something wrong.

Car insurance? We all have to pay it regardless of whether you're in employment or not, suck it up because there's no alternative.

I won't comment on the childcare costs as I don't know enough about it to make an educated post but your comments on the costs of a car are simply rubbish.

Let's say you're currently unemployed, don't own a car, and you have an offer of a job that is a distance away from you that requires a car. Or the job starts/ends outside normal public transport times, meaning you need a car.

With car tax of €300 a year, a car loan of €190 a month (that's for €4,000 over 2 years), €30 petrol a week and insurance of €500 a year, you're looking at €387+ a month just to get you in a position where you can get to your new job. If you're earning €10 an hour, that's 1 week's wages a month just for transport. And that's before you get into servicing/NCTing the car, or possibly paying tolls or parking charges. You could buy a cheaper car, but that runs the risk of having more things going wrong with it/needing more repairs/servicing and time off work for those.

So that's a quarter of your salary gone. Of course, you may no longer be eligible for rent allowance/mortgage interest supplement/other accommodation help. So let's say your rent is around €800 per month. If you're working a 38 hour week, you're now left with €459 a month, after transport and accommodation.

Depending on what your new job is, you may need to buy new clothes/uniform for the job. Let's assume you're being frugal and bringing your own packed lunch to work every day, and not having to pay for coffee/water anywhere, so no extra costs there.

There are still bills to pay at home. Your utilities come to €20 a week(to cover electricity/heating/phone/internet). You could add another €5 if you wanted something other than the basic TV channels, and another €5 for mobile credit, but let's ignore those for now, as you're scrimping.

You've now got €85 a week to live on. Remember, this is someone earning €10 an hour. This is higher than the minimum wage of €8.65. If you were on minimum wage, you're down to €35 a week, before you've even bought any groceries. And all this is talking gross - you haven't paid taxes yet. That's another €178 a month (single person, no property, no children).

Now you've got €45 a week to live on. That has to cover groceries (not just food, but cleaning products, toilet paper, razors, tampons), clothing, medicine.

If you happen to have a child, your tax payable will reduce and you'll get child allowance, but your childcare costs will be in the region of €40 a day, unless you're lucky enough to have a free childminder like granny or grandad around.

Then, after all that, there are incidental payments - things like car services, NCT, TV license, birthdays, Christmas, weddings, christenings, house/contents insurance.

Sure, there are savings that could be made in the figures above - get a crappier car (though that may lead to more incidentals), move somewhere with cheaper rent (if available and possible), work longer hours (if available). But hopefully now you'll see how car costs can severely eat into low incomes, and could put someone off returning to work if they're going to have to get a car to do so.

Idbatterim

But when it comes to running a car in this country the alternative is a p1ss poor public transport service..

Its also piss poor in most areas of Dublin to be honest!

Sleepy

Mike 1972 wrote: »

Perhaps the tax credits could replace child benefit ?

I've been advocating this for years. Even if you increased current dependent child welfare payments by an equivalent amount the administrative savings should be enormous...

Of course the unions would have a fit as an entire office of the DoSP would be made redundant....

Geuze

Any opposition to child tax credits versus child cash benefit would be nothing to do with a few dozen staff being redeployed within govt offices.

Reforms/changes to 1-2bn tax/welfare progs vs maybe 50 staff with 2.5m admin cost.

Idbatterim

what would the cost of a universal basic income scheme be? excluding those under 18 and over 65... i.e I wonder roughly what the average would be, if we were to keep the existing spend, but divide it amongst everyone eligible...

taken from wikipedia from the 2011 census, so Im assuming about 40% of the population would be illegible..

Age structure
0-14 years 21.3%
15-64 years 67.0%
65-over 11.7%

out of interest, what is the total annual child benefit spend?

Godge

Scofflaw wrote: »

If the answer to that is to be yes, then it seems obvious that the first thing to do is to be able to step away from a position where your best evidence for the existence of 'entitlement culture' is this:



The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'. If there is an "entitlement culture" which "kills the will to work", then there will be actual evidence of such, including, I don't doubt, studies and reports. First find those, and let's move away from "debates" where the scale of the problem is utterly subjective.

I shall await with interest such an objective approach.

cordially,
Scofflaw

http://www.thejournal.ie/esri-paper-unemployed-dole-richard-tol-484632-Jun2012/


This study that backed up the above assertion disappeared from the ESRI website. It was later replaced with the following study which came to a different conclusion:

http://www.esri.ie/UserFiles/publications/JACB201239/JACB201240.pdf


Without access to the "discredited" report, it is difficult to assess the reliability of both reports. The study does not take into account ancillary benefits from being unemployed such as the medical card, rent supplement, back-to-school allowance etc.

It also does not take into account the costs of working as outlined elsewhere in this thread. There is no doubt that some of the replacement rates quoted in the study would rise above 100%.

Finally nowhere in any study is there any consideration of non-monetary utility costs and benefits associated with unemployment and employment. In a culture (say the U.S) with a strong emphasis on self-sufficiency and reward for hard work, you would expect a strong utility benefit from working and a strong utility cost to not working.

However, if you live in a culture (say Ireland) which has a strong tradition of cheating the government up there, communities that are almost wholly dependent on welfare, and a respect for those who don't pay their taxes, who do "nixers", and who get from the system as much as they can, then the utility equation would be much different and therefore a replacement rate well below 100% would still act as a disincentive to work despite the apparent financial incentive.

chopper6

Sleepy wrote: »

I've been advocating this for years.....

Sleepy wrote: »

Of course the unions would have a fit as an entire office of the DoSP would be made redundant....

Yes,the unions would have a fit...the people being made redundant wouldn't care a bit.

:rolleyes:

The_Honeybadger

chopper6 wrote: »

Yes,the unions would have a fit...the people being made redundant wouldn't care a bit.

:rolleyes:

People in the cs are rarely (if ever) made redundant against their will. They'd be redeployed in another role on the same terms.

Zonda999

clairefontaine wrote: »

The problem is it's too expensive to go to work.

1. Petrol

2. Motor tax costs

3. Car insurance costs.

4. And finally the BIGGIE.... childcare costs.

In fairness, plenty people on SW, long term or otherwise have a drive a car. In that respect, 2 and 3 should be payed in either case.*1 is an obvious one but lets get real here, that hardly dis-incentivises work for very many people. No argument on 4

* For anyone over the age of 23 or so with, say a 1.0l car, the road tax is no more than 200-250€ per annum, and in the same case, insurance would almost certainly be less than €400.

If you take the figures of €00 and €250, that's 650€ per annum for tax and insurance which works out at €12.50 a week

Dubl07 wrote: »

"Single-parent-families" are a key issue. Young women appear to view them as a ticket to an income and housing. I'd start community creches for the children and let the mothers live in dorms with litter-picking as the default job unless they can find something better or are staying in full-time education.

Its probably a anecdotal view, but in this case, we all know that many single mothers living in a house also have a partner living with them, but obviously, the SW service don;t know it. This is a ridiculous scenario and costs the state an absolutely huge amount if the partner is working.

This is just simple welfare fraud, and tackling that is a bit off topic. In any case, my solution would be a cash reward, tax free(circa €1000 or something), on successful conviction for anonymous whistle-blowers. Let it be known that this money is available and it would save the state millions in a very short time, I'm convinced

View

clairefontaine wrote: »

The problem is it's too expensive to go to work.

1. Petrol

2. Motor tax costs

3. Car insurance costs.

4. And finally the BIGGIE.... childcare costs.

Unemployment benefit is supposed to be paid if you are unemployed, not if you refuse employment offers which don't pay you enough to run a nice car.

The Welfare System is NOT supposed to be there to "out-bid" the pay employers offer for a job.

skafish

clairefontaine wrote: »

It may not stop you, but it stops many.

Which attitude again proves my point.

You do realise, I hope, that the "JS" acronyms JSA and JSB refer to "Job Seekers"? ie it is supposed to assist or benefit people seeking a job. It is not designed to support people who refuse to work until said work will fund an expensive car.

These people should be removed from the live register.

Farmer Pudsey

Since 2008 the country has too an Ostrich like approach to this issue. The reality is that the cost of going to work for a couple with two kids is in the region of 10K/year this is in after tax income. They need to earn at least 15K in income to cover that alone.

This leads to a scenario where you have a situation that if either is jobless then both are better unless the one with the job is earning 50K+ a year and that is to break even. Our tax system is penal for a person earning over 35K. We have an effective top rate of 52% between TAX, PRSI and USC. When you look at it long term and add in the benefit of third level grants, the level of wages to sustain a working family is enormous.

The state has developed a welfare system that has killed the incentive to work. Low wage employment completes with Social Welfare this makes it impossible to develop any production work in Ireland.

Yet the government still thinks that it should tax child benefit and top it up to welfare recipients. That we should have a basic OAP and means test a top up for ''the vunerable''. It imagines that we can raise taxes and costs on employee's and employer's.

Idbatterim

The above hits the nail on the head! You have to ask yourself, what do you get extra when you go above the 32,800 as a single person, the answer... NOTHING! in fact its the opposite here, the more you pay in, the less you get, its madness, taking 52% or whatever it is, from anyone, I dont care what they earn, its IMMORAL!

I wish a party that represented the tax payer was established, Id nearly be prepared to forget about the pensioners and PS, just sort out welfare!

Scofflaw

Godge wrote: »

http://www.thejournal.ie/esri-paper-unemployed-dole-richard-tol-484632-Jun2012/


This study that backed up the above assertion disappeared from the ESRI website. It was later replaced with the following study which came to a different conclusion:

http://www.esri.ie/UserFiles/publications/JACB201239/JACB201240.pdf


Without access to the "discredited" report, it is difficult to assess the reliability of both reports. The study does not take into account ancillary benefits from being unemployed such as the medical card, rent supplement, back-to-school allowance etc.

It also does not take into account the costs of working as outlined elsewhere in this thread. There is no doubt that some of the replacement rates quoted in the study would rise above 100%.

Finally nowhere in any study is there any consideration of non-monetary utility costs and benefits associated with unemployment and employment. In a culture (say the U.S) with a strong emphasis on self-sufficiency and reward for hard work, you would expect a strong utility benefit from working and a strong utility cost to not working.

However, if you live in a culture (say Ireland) which has a strong tradition of cheating the government up there, communities that are almost wholly dependent on welfare, and a respect for those who don't pay their taxes, who do "nixers", and who get from the system as much as they can, then the utility equation would be much different and therefore a replacement rate well below 100% would still act as a disincentive to work despite the apparent financial incentive.

I have to say that you've done a good job in providing stats and research that show that (a) there are a high proportion of people in VLWI households here, and (b) welfare as a competitor to work is attractive here to a significant proportion of the workforce.

A comment on the VLWI graph - the figure for Ireland stands out very sharply, but that is to some extent a result of our sharp recession, the collapse of the construction industry, and the small-family-firm structure of the construction industry before the crash. Pre-crash, we were high in the charts, but not as much of an anomaly:



I would be cautious, then, in ascribing our very high VLWI figure to our attractive welfare regime, as opposed to it being a specific outcome of our crash.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Lambsbread

I've read this thread with interest and at the moment Ireland does not really seem to be doing enough to get people back to work. We have seen hikes in public transport costs recently further eating into peoples income.

Another interesting point that does not seem to be covered on this thread is the increasing price of healthcare. James O'Reilly just announced a potential 15% hike in insurance premiums together with the recent hikes we have already seen in recent years.

This kind of impact is surely making the poverty trap higher and keeping people on benefits for risk of losing their medical cards.

There does need to be some unfavourable decisions taken by the government to protect the middle classes, but no one in politics seems willing.