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Looking forward to budget.

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    #92
    JJJJNR
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,791 ✭✭✭JJJJNR


    Yer Da sells Avon wrote: »
    Thankfully, that'll never happen. I was on jobseekers benefit for a few months this year and it was difficult enough to get by on €198 a week. The figures are currently being massaged to suggest that we have full employment (people on 'activation schemes' like the disastrously wasteful and unhelpful 'Jobpath' are removed from the live register, despite still being unemployed), but the truth is that it can take time to actually find a job. I got lucky after months of searching, but Jesus, the whole process was soul-destroying.

    tl;dr? You can fuck right off with your "you'd soon be finding a job" bullshit and just be thankful that you have one.

    I don't think job-seeker’s is the same as sw recipients, with job-seekers you pay it back through additional taxes when you return to work full time. I don't think that's what the OP means. If your long term and have no interest in working you are probably doing the double as well. Great country and the EU, they'll have a grant for toilet paper soon.


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    #93
    Loves_lorries
    Site Banned Posts: 272 ✭✭Loves_lorries


    animaal wrote: »
    I judge a government by its actions rather than its words. By that measure, looking at the budget, we appear to have a centre-left government.

    - 2:1 spending/taxes
    - Union demands met
    - Tax bands unlikely to be indexed with inflation
    - Welfare increases to meet/exceed inflation
    - Concessions to the middle classes to be clawed back in other tax increases

    There are parties whose main interest is the low-paid and the unpaid, but no party fights for the interests of the middle classes.

    This is all fine for now, but at some stage there'll be a party to fill that gap in the market. When the day comes, I hope it won't be a party too far to the right (e.g. a mirror image of the PBP/AAA-type groups). We'll see. It's happened in other countries when large groups felt unrepresented.

    All parties fight for the middle class of the public sector, all parties vigorously court that voter bloc.


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    #94
    animaal
    Closed Accounts Posts: 815 ✭✭✭animaal


    dxhound2005 wrote: »
    Middle can mean different things to different people. Middle income is €70K to €80K for a full time working couple in my view. What do you mean by middle?

    True, it can mean different things to different people. I think it's about standard of living, which includes income but also expenditure and debt. There isn't a clear line.

    The €70k you mention, i.e. €35k per person, is roughly the point at which higher-rate income tax starts to be paid. I think that's a fair enough starting point. Although somebody earning less could have just a good a quality of life due to other factors. But I would say, for example, that with our tax system any single earner (as opposed to a couple) earning €70k-€80k, while having more comfort, would would not have a significantly different standard of living to somebody earning €20K less. I think they too could be termed part of the "middle".

    I think most TDs would probably consider themselves to be middle-class, and they earn somewhere around €96k per year. It's debatable.


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    #95
    lawred2
    Registered Users Posts: 24,283 ✭✭✭✭lawred2


    animaal wrote: »
    True, it can mean different things to different people. I think it's about standard of living, which includes income but also expenditure and debt. There isn't a clear line.

    The €70k you mention, i.e. €35k per person, is roughly the point at which higher-rate income tax starts to be paid. I think that's a fair enough starting point. Although somebody earning less could have just a good a quality of life due to other factors. But I would say, for example, that with our tax system any single earner (as opposed to a couple) earning €70k-€80k, while having more comfort, would would not have a significantly different standard of living to somebody earning €20K less. I think they too could be termed part of the "middle".

    I think most TDs would probably consider themselves to be middle-class, and they earn somewhere around €96k per year. It's debatable.

    not by most international standards it isn't


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    #96
    animaal
    Closed Accounts Posts: 815 ✭✭✭animaal


    lawred2 wrote: »
    not by most international standards it isn't

    I'm not sure there are international standards. For example, The average full-time worker in Ireland earned €45,611 in 2016. Although we can debate the detail, I don't think it's outrageous to suggest that middle-class might be a spread from 75% of this income to twice this income.

    Either way, people in this range of incomes have no party actively representing their interests.


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    #97
    Wanderer78
    Registered Users Posts: 28,814 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    animaal wrote:
    I judge a government by its actions rather than its words. By that measure, looking at the budget, we appear to have a centre-left government.


    My centre-left differs greatly from your centre-left


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    #98
    Sweet.Science
    Registered Users Posts: 2,837 ✭✭✭Sweet.Science


    https://www.rte.ie/tv/audience-participation/2018/0928/998789-prime-time-budget-special-2018-audience-tickets/


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    #99
    VinLieger
    Registered Users Posts: 17,657 ✭✭✭✭VinLieger


    Screw getting a couple of quid back in income tax its the increasing costs of everything else that's is killing people and they are doing nothing about those.

    Childcare, insurance, electricity, gas (due for its 2nd rise this year) to name only a few of the biggest drains on peoples pockets that they don't have a choice in but just keeping going up with zero help from the government.


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    #100
    c6ysaphjvqw41k
    Closed Accounts Posts: 466 ✭✭c6ysaphjvqw41k


    This post has been deleted.


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    #101
    snotboogie
    Registered Users Posts: 3,563 ✭✭✭snotboogie


    animaal wrote: »
    I'm not sure there are international standards. For example, The average full-time worker in Ireland earned €45,611 in 2016. Although we can debate the detail, I don't think it's outrageous to suggest that middle-class might be a spread from 75% of this income to twice this income.

    Either way, people in this range of incomes have no party actively representing their interests.

    Average isn't a great measure of how income is distributed in Ireland since a small number of huge earners push up the average pay. The median, which the CSO stopped measuring, is about 10k lower.


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    #102
    Geuze
    Registered Users Posts: 13,098 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    The entry point to the top rate of tax in Ireland is very low, relative to average earnings.

    Other countries have more rates, we have two rates.

    This means the top MTR is reserved for high earners in other countries, e.g. entry points like 2-6x average earnings.

    Our entry point is approx 1x average earnings.

    So although effective income tax rates are not high by European standards, most people think income tax is high here, as they focus on the crazy 50% MTR facing people on average earnings.


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    #103
    animaal
    Closed Accounts Posts: 815 ✭✭✭animaal


    Theo Billions Tyrant wrote: »
    This post has been deleted.

    It's worth checking though. Long before the VAT rate was reduced, I had a booking for a week in an Irish hotel. The stay was for after the reduction was implemented. When I asked if the bill would be reduced, I was told "no".

    I wouldn't be so cynical as to assume that cost increases are passed on to the customer but not the cost decreases :P


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    #104
    Geuze
    Registered Users Posts: 13,098 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    snotboogie wrote: »
    Average isn't a great measure of how income is distributed in Ireland since a small number of huge earners push up the average pay. The median, which the CSO stopped measuring, is about 10k lower.

    Yes, median is better than mean, for earnings data.

    https://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/earnings/


    Here the CSO publish something called Structural Earnings data, including median earnings.

    https://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/earnings/structuralearnings/

    I have not investigated what exactly this data is.


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    #105
    Ace2007
    Registered Users Posts: 19,679 ✭✭✭✭Ace2007


    Yer Da sells Avon wrote: »
    Thankfully, that'll never happen. I was on jobseekers benefit for a few months this year and it was difficult enough to get by on €198 a week. The figures are currently being massaged to suggest that we have full employment (people on 'activation schemes' like the disastrously wasteful and unhelpful 'Jobpath' are removed from the live register, despite still being unemployed), but the truth is that it can take time to actually find a job. I got lucky after months of searching, but Jesus, the whole process was soul-destroying.

    tl;dr? You can fuck right off with your "you'd soon be finding a job" bullshit and just be thankful that you have one.
    As per the norm on boards, a poster reads one post without looking at the rest of the conversation. I clearly stated that it should be brought in if someone is on the dole long term, for instance 3 years in this current climate.


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