The Living Wage Technical Group has today announced that the Living Wage remains unchanged from 2020, at €12.30 per hour. The Technical Group, of which Social Justice Ireland is a member, has today published its Living Wage Annual Paper, Technical Document and Expenditure and Income Tables. Social Justice Ireland urges Government to begin the process of increasing the National Minimum Wage, which is €10.10 per hour, towards the Living Wage in Budget 2021.
Social transfers are an effective policy tool in reducing income inequality in Ireland. Without social transfers, the proportion of the Irish population living at risk of poverty would be more than double what it currently is. Expenditure by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection accounted for 24 per cent of total Government expenditure in 2019, and 6 per cent of GDP. The Department recently published its Annual Statistical Report 2019 which contains a wealth of information on how this expenditure is distributed.
The National Economic Plan - to be published on Budget day - must give equal weight to environmental, social and economic considerations. Otherwise, this Government will simply repeat the mistakes of the past and many will be left behind. The National Economic Plan must be underpinned by a new social contract that treats our environment, society and economy equally
The deprivation figures published by the CSO show that almost 900,000 people still struggle to achieve a basic standard of living. The yearly increase was more than 140,000, and the fact that deprivation is increasing for almost every socio-demographic group is of real concern.
Ahead of Budget 2021, we examine some trends in effective income tax rates in Ireland over the last two decades.
On Wednesday, 18th November 2020 Social Justice Ireland held its Annual Social Policy Conference entitled A New Social Contract, A New Social Dialogue: Building a Better Future. This conference featured presentations by national and international experts as well as a panel discussion with representatives of the five pillars of Social Partnership. All presentations given on the day are contained within this book of conference proceedings.
Government should increase in core social welfare rates of €7 per week in Budget 2021 and set a three-year target for Government to reach the benchmark of 27.5 per cent of average earnings. In the forthcoming Budget Government should also complete the equalisation of Jobseeker’s rates for young people under 26, introduce a cost of disability allowance and introduce a universal state pension.
This paper makes proposals regarding the need to increase current social welfare rates and set a pathway to indexation to 27.5 per cent of average weekly earnings in Budget 2021. It also revi
A new report from the Occupational Pensions Stakeholder Group (OPSG) provides an excellent analysis of the gender gap in pensions and provides advice on practices to reduce it. However, a universal state social welfare pension, with entitlement no longer based around labour market connectivity, would be the biggest step towards gender pension equality.
The current State Pension system deprives many people who have spent their lives in caring roles of financial security in their old age. These are people society should be rewarding, not penalising. With the new Programme for Government committing to the proposed Auto Enrolment Plan, an opportunity to increase the fairness of the Irish pension system is being missed, and at a substantial financial cost.
