Just got into this thread. Boy, do some of you guys worry me. I have never been unemployed and paid my taxes, children's education fees etc. But i think that you are very quick to condemn the unemployed. People find themselves on the dole for a very wide variety of reasons: ability, qualifications, family background, lack of peer support or example, "wrong side of tracks", health issues, caring for someone, etc etc. I haven't noticed any mention of the role of employers. Employers hire the best value for money and non nationals provide good value in many countries. They have little local support if things go wrong so they make sure to be on time, do what they are tole and give no "trouble". We have attacked the public servants and their jobs for life and big pensions but so little mention of the bankers, who from top to near the bottom benefited from mad bad lending policies. The courts left Seanie F with enough money to live on and you want to reduce an uneployed person to nil ! Never forget that the bankers and politicians (but mainly Bankers who mislead a stupid government and this is not only in Ireland) who got us to the position we are in. Not the unemployed and those on welfare. Real nations are judged on the way they treat those most in need. Those receiving welfare benefits while working on the BLACK economy are a different kettle of fish. They must be rooted out. Have any of you ever hired someone like that or paid cash so that no VAT was paid? I hear this happens!!
Now that you've had your rant, are you opposed to doing something about social welfare recipients who refuse jobs or upskilling and training?
Nobody is against doing something about people who choose welfare for a way of life but I am more interested in reforming the entire social welfare system rather than laying the blame purely on the unemployed. Like I say, many of you are happy enough to claim childrens benefit that you don't need. I find that harder to defend than paying a jobless person €200 a week.
I think it’s a fair point. I’ve posted many times that its nonsense to give children’s allowance to people on high incomes. BTW, I’m one of them; I have 4 children so I get €7’500 in tax free welfare payments from the state each year. That’s nuts.I've heard it all now...your attempt to demonise families who work and contribute to society is in extremely bad taste, as is your use of the phrase "many of you".
You are mixing up too many points. There is a serious problem with welfare fraud in this country. The reason for this is that people won’t report their neighbours, friends or family for this theft but that’s no reason to cut rates.What about the thousands of wasters who are paid €200 a week? What about the thousands of wasters who were claiming unemployment benefit during the boom when we effectively had full employment?
I think it’s a fair point. I’ve posted many times that its nonsense to give children’s allowance to people on high incomes. BTW, I’m one of them; I have 4 children so I get €7’500 in tax free welfare payments from the state each year. That’s nuts.
You are mixing up too many points. There is a serious problem with welfare fraud in this country. The reason for this is that people won’t report their neighbours, friends or family for this theft but that’s no reason to cut rates.
I don’t think people on welfare deserve to have the rates cut. I do think that the country can’t afford the current welfare bill and so will have to cut rates anyway.
How is to blame, what’s fair and what people deserve is a different issue.
These issues are all interlinked.
You SHOULD get that level of child benefit and if you didn't you should get four extra personal tax credits of €1,650 (i.e. €6,600) to reflect the fact that you're supporting four extra people.
However, before hammering the middle classes again (i.e the ones who actually contribute to society rather than milk it), it's imperative that as much waste as possible is eliminated.
The minimum wage is too high, I don't know why Fine Gael reversed the cuts. Surely wages that are too high are part of the problem. I think it was just a purely populist move by FG, not related to our economic situation, or to what is good for our country.
(If FG wanted to break election promises why not that one?)
Social welfare rates are too high.
I explained this to a guy who applied to me for a job, with no experience of cabinet making. I explained that I could employ experienced people at little more than the minimum wage.. mostly Polish lads it must be said, but from my point of view there's little difference.
So there is no lower wage available to pay him! He offered to work for free!, in order to gain experience which is essential to get a job in a hands-on cabinet making workshop.
We’ve lost nearly half of our manufacturing jobs since the high point in the early 90’s.
Many of these job losses were due to technological advancements that rendered plants or even industries obsolete. Examples of this are Fruit of the Loom in the North West and Packard Electric in Tallaght, Dublin.
There are far more examples of companies just moving to lower cost locations. The fall of the Iron Curtain and the opening up of China made much of this inevitable. The rest is the disturbing part; businesses that have moved to the UK, Germany and Holland because they are cheaper and/or better than us.
In the 1980’s there was no Eastern Europe or China to move to; they were closed for business. We were the Poland of the day, we just had to get into the party and it was inevitable that we would level up economically. Now we are the ones who are too expensive and the new kids on the block are eating away at us from the bottom up. I don’t know what the solution is but as long as we are more expensive than mainland Western European competition that is better located and technically superior to us we haven’t a chance.
There is no net gain to taxation when tax funds are given to people to spend. If €100 is taken out of tax revenue and handed to someone who spends it, attracting 21% VAT this does not mean that government is taking in more money. The economy is still down €100 which was taxed away.Without some decent economic analysis, the impact is far from certain. There would indeed be a saving on welfare spending. There would also be reduced VAT and customs and excise arising from reduced spending. The reductions in retail spending would lead to lower corporation tax income and reduced employment in retail. The reduced employment would mean reduced employment taxes, reduced knock on spending, and increased welfare requirements.
But how does a country like Germany manage to compete on a global scale? Germany has no official minimum wage and has big restrictions on welfare entitlements. Wages are high, and yet it is one the biggest and most successful exporters in the world.I'm still not getting any idea from where you expect these low-skill low-wage jobs to come from. You could cut welfare/minimum wage by a factor of ten and we still won't be competing with eastern Europe or China, so we're not going to get manufacturing jobs. Where are these jobs going to come from?
Reducing one type of welfare should not automatically trigger another type of welfare to be increased. The whole idea should be to reduce the public's dependence on welfare and you cannot achieve that by increasing welfare.Probably not. Given the 300k unemployed people not qualifying for benefits, there is a pretty good chance that some of those will be taking up any available jobs.
But you're right to question me, as my language was sloppy. It is probably not true to say that there is no net economic benefit. There would indeed be some saving on dole spending. This may be countered by some additional welfare spending on things like FIS or other supports for those who's income have dropped.
There is no net gain to taxation when tax funds are given to people to spend. If €100 is taken out of tax revenue and handed to someone who spends it, attracting 21% VAT this does not mean that government is taking in more money. The economy is still down €100 which was taxed away.
But how does a country like Germany manage to compete on a global scale? Germany has no official minimum wage and has big restrictions on welfare entitlements. Wages are high, and yet it is one the biggest and most successful exporters in the world.
Reducing one type of welfare should not automatically trigger another type of welfare to be increased. The whole idea should be to reduce the public's dependence on welfare and you cannot achieve that by increasing welfare.
The other act is that the Dole, like every other part of Ireland's economy is riddled with corrupt practices.
The correct procedure therefore is for the armchair critics both here and in government like Joan Burton to realize that we need to target the Dole scroungers amongst us,
(i) those who are not entitled to claim
(ii) those who are claiming on the double and
(iii) those holding down jobs while they claim.
But that would sound a bit like too much work for Joan perhaps.
I'm sure she has more important things to do with her Ministerial time than actually DO HER JOB and weed out the rotten apples!
Far easier just to declare everyone who is getting PAID BY THE STATE to be scroungers, and take shots at easy targets who are down on their luck.
All very interesting stuff, but I I don't quite see the relevance to this debate about reducing minimum wage and reducing welfare as a mechanism to get people back to work.
Why SHOULD he get that the money? Why should the State pay money for people to have kids? I have put off starting a family until i was financially secure on my own. I dont expect social welfare or tax credits. I would rather the State paid more on childcare and childrens health. People love comparing our social welfare to other countries so you go to some European countries, explain how much you get for having kids and watch their reaction.
I am middle class but unlike you I dont envy all my friends who have recently lost jobs and neither to I begrudge them a decent level of State support while they try and get on their feet again. Many of them have failed and rather than live off the State or give up on their careers have decided to emigrate. None o
I know are sitting around laughing at the taxpayers for being mugs.
The problem with things like this is we always think it is a great idea to slash social welfare until it actually affects us.
With respect to non-EU foreigners, I just found this [broken link removed] that suggests the number of non-EU citizens in Ireland in 2010 was about 75K, one of the lowest levels in the EU.
Jim.
All very interesting stuff, but I I don't quite see the relevance to this debate about reducing minimum wage and reducing welfare as a mechanism to get people back to work.
unlike you I dont envy all my friends who have recently lost jobs
A bizarre comment.
Why would I "envy all my friends who have recently lost jobs"?
I pity them.
You are the one that wants to chop unemployment benefits because it is too generous or because people are wasters who abuse it. You obviously think people on the dole have it a lot easier than us middle class people who contribute something to society. (They are your words)
Would you care to give some kinds of examples of the kinds of business and industries that will create new jobs (not displace existing jobs) by offering wages below the current minimum wage level?Now there are two reasons why wages are not falling enough for businesses to start hiring again, (a) there is a very high minimum wage and (b) unemployed people are discouraged from taking on work that pays the same or less than their welfare entitlements.
If businesses could advertise jobs at lower wage rates and people were encouraged to take on those jobs then unemployment would go down.
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