Jobseeker allowance discourages people to find work?

[shnaek]

And now with the water charge which will in all likelyhood not apply if you are on the dole, there will be another addition to the incentive not to work. A household charge of €200 makes the person not paying it around €400 better off. Add to that a property tax, with the same exemptions, and the incentive not to work could be increased by over €1000 when income tax is taken into account - perhaps even more depending on the charge.

 

[Protocol]

Note that in the USA the unemployed must continue with their property tax payments - no waivers AFAIK.

 

[Chris]

People who have worked and paid social insurance should be entitled to a % of previous taxable income for a set period of time and this should be paid out of the social insurance fund (thus being cost neutral).

I agree with the gist of what you are saying, but there is no social insurance fund. In fact, if a private company were to run an insurance product like the government run social insurance it would be prosecuted for running a ponzi scheme.

In that context I’d be all for a system that links benefits to former income levels and then steps down to a lower long-term rate over a few years.

I would only be in favour of this if the whole system were run like an insurance product, that was not allowed run at a loss and stood in open competition with similar private products. Two chances in that happening though.