# Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme



## DB74 (25 Mar 2020)

More details announced today about this updated scheme







						Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme
					

Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme




					revenue.ie
				



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According to the Revenue guidance it appears that employers will receive a higher subsidy (up to €410) for lower paid workers as opposed to just €350 for higher paid workers

Am I reading this correct?

- a maximum of €410 per week where the average net weekly pay is less than or equal to €586
OR
- a maximum of €350 per week where the average net weekly pay is between €586 - €960

According to the legislation there is no subsidy at all where an employee usually earns more than €960 per week -https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/bill/2020/4/eng/initiated/b0420d.pdf (page 29 sect 6(f))

so where an employers can't top up at all they will receive less subsidy for employees who usually earn a higher wage

That doesn't make sense unless I'm looking at this all wrong


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## bmbam1 (26 Mar 2020)

Yes I think you are. Thought the same myself . Seems batty. Where is the incentive ? Key staff a business may want to retain eligible for a lower subsidy than others. Emplyers would need to top up to make up the difference and I doubt many will have the capacity especially if your turnover is now Zero.


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## Purple (26 Mar 2020)

Still no clarification that I can see on what support there is for employees who are self isolating or have the virus.


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## clmemac (26 Mar 2020)

From what I see, it's even worse than that. 
According to a couple of articles including this, if the employee's weekly wages are normally €960 (50k PA), no subsidy is payable for them.
This seems very strange.
https://www.rdj.ie/insights/employer-covid-19-temporary-wage-subsidy?__=0.72369972424


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## bmbam1 (26 Mar 2020)

These figures are net pay figures but there is quite an anomaly viz higher paid v lower paid workers


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## newtothis (26 Mar 2020)

bmbam1 said:


> These figures are net pay figures but there is quite an anomaly viz higher paid v lower paid workers



There's an even worse anomoly. I posted the following in a different thread a short while ago:

It looks like the Wage Subsidy Scheme in operation from today (Mar 26th) is somewhat different from the original one last week. In the original case, the employee stood to get the same whether they stayed with the employer or not - €203. However, with this current scheme, as far as I can make out, if their average net pay was less than €500 they would better off being laid off completely and claiming the Covid-19 Unemployment Payment, for which they get €350 (as 70% of €500 is €350, so anything less and they get less). That's my reading of it anyway, but is that correct? I have wages to pay tomorrow (and no cash to pay) and have been telling our employees (none of whom have worked for the past two weeks) to hang on and not apply to the Covid-19 Unemployment Payment.

Is my understanding correct?


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## bmbam1 (27 Mar 2020)

@newtothis Yes it is . I worked it out for a business and the effect is that those earning sub 500 are better off claiming welfare. The Employer would need to top up the subsidy were it planning to hold onto staff to make it worthwhile. Easier said than done if you have no income and cash is dwindling to nothing


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## spiggy (27 Mar 2020)

So for the 100's of thousands of retail workers that are being made temporarily redundant, their employers are going to tell their staff to apply for the welfare rather than to retain them under the wage subsidy scheme. My reading of this is that either people with salaries above 38k will get zero support, or those under it will be told to apply for the welfare payment. 

So who is actually going to take this scheme up? 

According to the creche workers survey about 7% of staff will be kept on the payroll. Maybe I am missing it, but I think the government has seriously underestimated the capacity for employers to top up the 70% (why only 70%? why not take a cost of €5.3bn rather than €3.7bn and keep everyone in employment by giving 100%). After all, the logic was to make it as easy as possible for companies to return to normal post this crisis.


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## newtothis (27 Mar 2020)

bmbam1 said:


> @newtothis Yes it is . I worked it out for a business and the effect is that those earning sub 500 are better off claiming welfare. The Employer would need to top up the subsidy were it planning to hold onto staff to make it worthwhile. Easier said than done if you have no income and cash is dwindling to nothing



That's crazy. It has the exactly the opposite effect to that intended. Right now, our doors are closed and we've zero income. We’re also out of cash with any outgoings coming from our overdraft. Our plan is that when we're ready and safe to do so, we can re-open with minimal staff, hopefully building up until we're at full strength. On the wage subsidy scheme, we can do that: the staff are getting paid, and we can call on them as needed.

However, if staff are better off being laid off, we presumably can’t ask them to work (it’s described as the “COVID-19 Pandemic *Unemployment* Payment”). So, either our staff are happy to accept a lower payment or we lose the ability to restart the business. I wouldn't ask them to do that. Note that last week’s schemes had the same payment regardless of whether someone was on the payroll or not.


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