We need to cut social welfare

[Keith-M]

The Mini Budget is on its way

Social Welfare is a growing expense, which of these will be reduced ?

1) The dole
2) Children's allowance
3) Other benefits ?

cYp

Hopefully all three.
The dole should be reduced by 5% in line with deflation and people with large redundancy cheques should have to wait longer for welfare.
People ho are claiming dole for more than two years should be put on work schemes cleaning up the countries parks, canals etc.

Children's allowence should be mean's testd. Anyone earning over €1k a week should not receive this payment.

Yes there's a slew of welfare payments that can no longer be afforded. End any welfare payment to anyone earning above €1k a week.

[Leftfemme22]

Hopefully all three.
The dole should be reduced by 5% in line with deflation

Deflation is 5%?

Wow..........

[greasytrucker]

There's been a huge increase in social welfare rates over the past few years - and with more people about to hit the dole we need to look at cuts now:



There simple will be no money to pay if we continue as we are going, these increases should never have been given.

cYp

Its unsustainable, dole for a single adult in the republic is higher the minimum wage of an adult in the north who works 40 hrs a week.

Not just dole though teachers, cops and all public service workers earn more then double of those in the UK.

[Leftfemme22]

Its unsustainable, dole for a single adult in the republic is higher the minimum wage of an adult in the north who works 40 hrs a week.

Not just dole though teachers, cops and all public service workers earn more then double of those in the UK.

Whats the differential in the cost of living?
Until greedy retailers/supermarkets etc etc stop ripping us off people on the dole need the money they are receiving simply to survive.

Thats the price of living in the most expensive country in the EU.

[dub14]

Try a lets reform approach. A young person with no tax contributions can get the EXACT same as a person who has worked over 40 years. Where is the equity in that. Blame the Government and OURSELVES who were to greedy to even take note what is now termed a Job Seekers Allowance receive. They are bought votes imo. There was a time Unemployment benfefit was linked into how much you contributed in tax, years worked etc, a school leaver could not even apply!

By the way, I am willing to take a 20% cut in SW. Don't lump everyone into the same category.

Cheers

Too right - Pay related benefit I think it was called. It was time limited but at least it recognised the fact that you had worked and payed your way etc.

As someone who does very well out of child benefit I'm well qualified to comment. I think we don't need to just tweak the early age supplement but abolish it (and I have 2 kids who qualify). It was a lazy, badly thought out solution to escalating child care costs. In true Bertie style it was an attempt to keep everyone happy (in this case working mothers and stay at home mothers - yes I know this is also work so don't jump on my language please).

Anyway - while I don't know current creche costs I can only assume that they are under the same pressures as other sectors and therefore coming down. If this is the case then the early age supplement is harder to justify. It didnt exist 5 years ago anyway so getting rid of it should be far more painless than cutting other longer established benfits.

[Andrew49]

Originally Posted by [COLOR=DarkGreen]greasytrucker[/COLOR][COLOR=DarkGreen] [/COLOR]

Its unsustainable, dole for a single adult in the republic is higher the minimum wage of an adult in the north who works 40 hrs a week.

Not just dole though teachers, cops and all public service workers earn more then double of those in the UK.

The poor people in the UK, having to put up with less dole than the Irish, and struggling with their free health service, free education system and a fairly decent transport system.

[hopi watcher]

Isn't it amazing the PD ideologues can always be relied upon to come up with the suggestion to cut the dole and pensions, despite the fact that what the econcomy needs is to maintain the highest level possible of money in circulation and those living on welfare place all they receive back into circulation, by necessaity, within days of receiving the payout. There is of course a very strong case to be made to drastically shift high end income down the socio-economic ladder, by way of taxation, to those living on welfare so as to increase the volume of cash in circulation. This is unlikely to happen though because unfortunaltely we have the same ideologues very close to the government decision making process.

[Dios]

There is of course a very strong case to be made to drastically shift high end income down the socio-economic ladder, by way of taxation, to those living on welfare so as to increase the volume of cash in circulation.

Interestingly enough, in the last great depression top tax rates in the US leaped to 63%, all the way to 79% just before the war, and didn't drop below 70% until the 1980s, spending several decades in the 90s. As a response to the economic problems of the time its value was debatable, but there can be no doubt that it brought in enormous amounts of money to the government coffers to spend on infrastructure and public works programmes.

Its a whole other can of worms as to what role this played in the economic dominance of the US in the latter part of the century, the 80s and 90s could be said to be the period when massive budgetary deficits started to really build, which as far as I can see the US never had any intention of repaying, but they have that enormous military to support.

However consider what a tax rate of that level would do to people with a mortgage to repay, our equivalent of a bloated military. Debt repayment would become essentially impossible for anyone with large debts, with knock on effects for the banks. Its an ugly little situation we're in.

[hopi watcher]

Interestingly enough, in the last great depression top tax rates in the US leaped to 63%, all the way to 79% just before the war, and didn't drop below 70% until the 1980s, spending several decades in the 90s. As a response to the economic problems of the time its value was debatable, but there can be no doubt that it brought in enormous amounts of money to the government coffers to spend on infrastructure and public works programmes.

Its a whole other can of worms as to what role this played in the economic dominance of the US in the latter part of the century, the 80s and 90s could be said to be the period when massive budgetary deficits started to really build, which as far as I can see the US never had any intention of repaying, but they have that enormous military to support.

However consider what a tax rate of that level would do to people with a mortgage to repay, our equivalent of a bloated military. Debt repayment would become essentially impossible for anyone with large debts, with knock on effects for the banks. Its an ugly little situation we're in.

The US example is in fact a copy of what the suggestion is, move high end income down to the lower parts of the socio-economic ladder, using the 'workhouse' method.
If we are to look elsewhere for pointers as to how we get out of the 'ugly' mess we should look closer to home to countries that have come through similiar situations such as Sweden, Denmark, Finland and The Netherlands. Interestingly enough, every measure taken by these countries was pre tested to ensure that 'Social Solidarity' was central.
Cutting welfare at this time would fly in the face of 'social solidarity' and would be a very risky thing to do and not only because of the negative impact it would have on an already sluggish economy. Having said that I greatly fear that such a decision is likely if only to placate the begrudgery of the 'greed merchants' who unfortunately have massive influence with this government.

[Dios]

The US example is in fact a copy of what the suggestion is, move high end income down to the lower parts of the socio-economic ladder, using the 'workhouse' method.

You've lost me here, workhouses were intended to make people work for their welfare, we're talking about increasing high end taxes. I'm not entirely sure why we have just two rates anyway, surely in these days of computers we can manage a sliding scale, something like this:

tax=income/(5- 0.1 per 1000 over base capped at 1)

So the more you earn the more you pay, without a fixed cutoff point which encourages people to game the system. 20% up to higher earners, with a maximum of 90% at €80,000 or more, over base of course. The exact numbers would need to be adjusted naturally, but isn't that the fairest way?

Cutting welfare at this time would fly in the face of 'social solidarity' and would be a very risky thing to do and not only because of the negative impact it would have on an already sluggish economy.

I'm not in favour of cutting social welfare, I am very much in favour of wiping out welfare fraud and possibly a reciprocal arrangement with other countries in the EU on welfare.