Those numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt. Is anyone really so cut off from reality to think that in 1 of 10 houses in Ireland there’s an income of 115k after tax?
The CSO is normally highly reliable however I’m not really sure it’s fully justified in these income numbers – especially considering how some people are apt to misinterpret even the clearest statistics.
[broken link removed] (page 15 I think is what CORI/SJI/Father Healy is looking at)
Essentially what it’s saying is that in 10% of households the pre-tax income is 2227 euro – that I can believe - it sounds about right. What it goes on to do then is to somehow add on employer PRSI contributions, pension contributions, benefits from children’s allowances, some allowance for unemployment protection, build up of pension rights, take off taxes, yada, yada, yada, and comes to a net disposable income from that 2,227 euro of 2,276. Yup more money after tax than actually earned.
Now I’m not sure how many receive 115k combined salary pretax and “feel” via some bizarre CSO calculation that they have in fact earned 118k per annum after deductions. Personally I add on an imaginary value for being able to breathe good Irish air of 250k per annum.
All very well taking a holistic view to income and calculating imaginary numbers, but taxing imaginary income is a little harder.
In reality these figures have “improved” in terms of “fairness” as this data would be pre USC, when PRSI thresholds existed, better pension tax relief, two years of jobseekers rather than one, being allowed to retire and get OAP at 65 rather than 68. All of these imaginary numbers that the CSO were adding on need to be significantly reduced downwards.
But to my eye the whole series of numbers looks questionable. I’m a little disappointed in the CSO to be honest.