staggering

the_dark_side

ok... without knowing much technical ecconomic language... here is my question/grave concern.

There is 'word' of welfare payments to be cut in some way by an Bord Snip Nua... although the contents of today's report havent been revealed yet. It is being said that this will be inevitable etc. Ok, fair enough.. Im not on the dole anyway (nor am I working at the moment)... but....

The government have to try and raise/cut 5billion euro by the end of the year. If the social welfare budget was to be cut by, lets say 5%.... thats roughly €10 off everyone' weekly dole payment... ok.
There are currently 420,000 people on the dole at the moment. So that would mean the government would have saved 420,000 x 10 = €4.2 million x 48 weeks = less than half of whats needed

smcgiff

That's only one week - there are 26(ish) left in the remainder of this year alone.

Tipsy Mac

the_dark_side wrote: »

There are currently 420,000 people on the dole at the moment. So that would mean the government would have saved 420,000 x 10 = €4.2 million.

Per week, muliplied by 52 gives you 218,400,000 a year saved, a step in the right direction but still miles off.

If you instead started up a 10 year SSIA system to support the government where you gave people a 7-10% return on their investment there's lots of people would put their hands in their pockets and support the country. It would keep the money in the country instead of it going to foreign banks.

the_dark_side

oops... I cant believe my mis-calculation... Im nearly as bad as the government. Ive changed my original post... and am slowly backing away from the thread... sorry

the_dark_side

Tipsy Mac wrote: »

Per week, muliplied by 52 gives you 218,400,000 a year saved, a step in the right direction but still miles off.

If you instead started up a 10 year SSIA system to support the government where you gave people a 7-10% return on their investment there's lots of people would put their hands in their pockets and support the country. It would keep the money in the country instead of it going to foreign banks.

That is a very good idea... why arent they doing this then?

Time Magazine

the_dark_side wrote: »

There are currently 420,000 people on the dole at the moment. So that would mean the government would have saved 420,000 x 10 = €4.2 million.

Not everyone on the Live Register is getting €200.

Where is the other €4,995,800,000 going to come out of?

Let's assume everyone on dole is on €200. €10 a week from them saves €4m a week. So that's €200m a year. So you're left with €4.8bn. So it's not one-thousandth, it's one-twentieth.

Dole is only a relatively small part of the Social Welfare budget, which in turn isn't the only thing the State spends its money on. Child Benefit is a large chunk of the SW budget and so are old-age pensions.

Expect the government to introduce a property tax, water charges and a carbon tax. It will also probably delay construction of major projects like Metro North.

None of these cuts/new taxes are nice, but none of them are going to spell the end of the world either.

eamonnm79

They want people to spend money not save it.
Do you mean 7 % over 10 years or per anum?
The Country can currently borrow at about 3% so why would they/we ant to pay 7%.
Anglo can borrow for 1%.

the_dark_side

yes, I did realise the error I made in my calculations. I realised that there could be no way possible for that figure to be right. I was just watching David McWilliams Generation Game on his website, I wasnt thinking clearly

loobylou

Welfare payments include many other things than just dole, eg childrens allowance,pensions,rent allowances, etc,etc,etc.
Think the annual bill is about €20billion so a 5% cut would save a billion. So only €4billion to go!!
Actually my question is why only raise/cut/save €5billion. If the annual deficit is over €20billion who decides (or rather why) we need to cut only €5billion, presumably borrowing €15 billion+ is OK.