What is the average wage in Ireland?

Geuze

Eurostat earnings data from the Eurostat SES 2014.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Earnings_statistics

See charts below:

Median gross hourly earnings, EUR and PPS

Geuze

Geuze

Dispersion of earnings:

maninasia

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Joe stiglitz talks a lot about median wages, I do believe this is a true measure of the levels of income, and sadly it's not looking good for many. This is a very worrying trend

It looks very good for Ireland that's what it looks like, read the stats!

Wanderer78

maninasia wrote:

It looks very good for Ireland that's what it looks like, read the stats!

Or are we misinterpreting the data? A larger proportion of wages is being used in 'rent seeking' activities such as the servicing of debts etc, are most in society truly benefiting from these activities?

Victor

Yourself isit wrote: »

That's 40k if a full time position.

People should be careful on contrasting pay with income. The median income is lower than the median pay.

Is your point about tax?

If so, everyone pays tax at some level. People who earn more, generally pay more tax.

Incomes are more than just wages and salaries.

Peregrinus

Victor wrote: »

Is your point about tax?

No. I think the point is that median income isn't just a function of the hourly rate of pay; it's also a function of the number of hours worked.

Geuze

At long last I have found median annual earnings data on Eurostat, from the 2014 SES survey.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/labour-market/earnings/database

Look at the "earn_ses_annual" series.

Here is median annual earnings for full-time workers:

(1) sectors B-F, industry and construction = 42,036

(2) sectors B-N, business economy = 39,411

(3) sectors B-S, excl sector O: industry, construction and services, excl public admin and defence = 41,829

(4) sectors P-S, Education; human health and social work activities; arts, entertainment and recreation; other service activities = 47,894

Yourself isit

Victor wrote: »

Is your point about tax?

If so, everyone pays tax at some level. People who earn more, generally pay more tax.

Incomes are more than just wages and salaries.

My point was not about tax. It was saying that we shouldn't compare the median income (wages, pensions, welfare and the rest) with median wages alone.

I've seen people argue that someone on below median wages was well paid because he or she was above median income. That's all.

Geuze

Peregrinus wrote: »

Does Eurostat also publish an average gross hourly wage?

It strikes me that the ratio of the median wage to the average wage might be useful information regarding the distribution of income in an economy - the closer the median is to the average the more evenly earnings are shared, and vice versa.

Yes, they do.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/labour-market/earnings/database

OMD

Yourself isit wrote: »

My point was not about tax. It was saying that we shouldn't compare the median income (wages, pensions, welfare and the rest) with median wages alone.

I've seen people argue that someone on below median wages was well paid because he or she was above median income. That's all.

But you need to look at after tax income. Our tax system favours those on lower incomes so they do better in Ireland than in other countries.

So it looks from the stats that Ireland has a lot of people with low wages (21% earn less than €13.40/hour) but if you looked at after tax income, lower paid in Ireland do better than in most other Eurostat countries.

Peregrinus

"Lower paid" is a relative term, obviously, since what is low pay in one economy might not be low pay, or not quite as low pay, in another.

I did see a chart - I must try and track it down - which compared Ireland with the USA and the major EU countries for tax progressivity. Essentially, it look at what your average effective tax rate would be in each country if you were on 50%, 75%, 100%, 150%, 200%, etc of average earnings for that country. The picture that emerged was that Ireland was definitely a low-tax country for people on below-average earnings or on average earnings; it had in fact the lowest average tax rate of all the countries surveyed. For those on more than about about 150% of average earnings or higher, Irish tax rates were mid-range. At no income level were Irish tax rates more than mid-range.

So, the take-away is that the Irish tax system is sharply progressive; as your earnings go up your tax rate will rise more rapidly than in other countries. But this isn't achieved by heavy taxes on above-average earners; our taxes there are only mid-range; it's achieved by strikingly low tax rates on low earners.

One consequence of this is that increasing tax rates on lower earners doesn't offer much prospect for reducing them for higher earners. This is partly mathematical; higher tax rates on lower earners don't actually raise a lot of money because, duh, lower earners don't have much money; a 1% tax increase on a worker earning 50% of the average wage does not finance a 1% tax cut for a worker on 250% of the average wage. But, additionally, in Ireland more than in other countries, the political case for spending that money on reducing tax rates for above-average earners would not be strong, since tax-rates for above average earners are already mid-range.

maninasia

Finally somebody stating the truth that Ireland is one the THE BEST places in the world for the minimum wage bracket.

maninasia

maninasia wrote: »

Finally somebody stating the truth that Ireland is one the THE BEST places in the world for the minimum wage bracket.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/where-are-the-world-s-highest-minimum-wages/

If taking in the very low income tax burden on these earners it could be the best place in the world for them!!

Peregrinus

maninasia wrote: »

Finally somebody stating the truth that Ireland is one the THE BEST places in the world for the minimum wage bracket.

Not necessarily. People on the minimum wage pay relatively little tax in any developed country, and the difference between "relatively little tax" and "slightly less tax even than that" is not very great. If you're on the minimum wage, tax rates are only one factor that will determine how well off you are and, to be honest, probably not the largest factor. Other social policies and social expenditures will be far more important. Does your city have cheap and accessible public transport? What is the availability of affordable housing? How good, and how comprehensive, are the public health services? Do you have access to free or affordable training/education opportunities so that you don't have to be on the minimum wage for ever?

maninasia

Doesn't Ireland provide supplementary benefits for people on low incomes? Sounds pretty good to me.

By the way it's due to go up to 9.55euro per hour soon, billions around the world would kill for that.

Peregrinus

maninasia wrote: »

Doesn't Ireland provide supplementary benefits for people on low incomes?

In some cases, yes. In others, no. There are conditions attached to all social welfare payments, and not all low earners will qualify for a payment.

In any case, this wouldn't make Ireland better than other countries for low-earning employees. Most developed economies provide social welfare of one kind or another to at least some low earners. You'd need to look in some detail as the schemes operated in different countries - how generous they are, how many workers benefit from them - before you could conclude that Ireland's was the best (or the worst, or somewhere in between).

maninasia

I understand the points you are making about other factors impacting on savings and life quality.

However for low income earners Ireland is definitely one of the best places to be.

Along with highly subsidised 3rd level education most people have got a pretty good deal all things considered .

If you are a young person living at home in Ireland you can probably save a good portion of that minimum wage. Even if not living at home you may well be eligible for rent supplement and other welfare.

In countries like the US where minimum wage is much lower they often get no proper health insurance and they usually have to have a car to drive to work. Life is much much harder for those folks.

Folks in the UK are also much worse off.

maninasia

I understand the points you are making about other factors impacting on savings and life quality.

However for low income earners Ireland is definitely one of the best places to be.

Along with highly subsidised 3rd level education most people have got a pretty good deal all things considered .

If you are a young person living at home in Ireland you can probably save a good portion of that minimum wage. Within a year if careful with your money you could have 10,000 euro saved which is a very considerable sum in many countries. That is why you see many migrants and students coming to Ireland you work for minimum wage (or less sometimes ).

Even if not living at home you may well be eligible for rent supplement and other welfare.

In countries like the US where minimum wage is much lower they often get no proper health insurance and they usually have to have a car to drive to work. Life is much much harder for those folks.

Folks in the UK are also much worse off.

Peregrinus

maninasia wrote: »

I understand the points you are making about other factors impacting on savings and life quality.

However for low income earners Ireland is definitely one of the best places to be.

Along with highly subsidised 3rd level education most people have got a pretty good deal all things considered .

If so, you'd expect a high participation rate in 3rd-level education from people coming from low-income homes. And I don't think we see that, do we?

maninasia wrote: »

If you are a young person living at home in Ireland you can probably save a good portion of that minimum wage. Within a year if careful with your money you could have 10,000 euro saved which is a very considerable sum in many countries. That is why you see many migrants and students coming to Ireland you work for minimum wage (or less sometimes ).

That's not why you see "many migrants and students coming to Ireland"; by definition, they're not "young people living at home". And to the extent that they are working, as you acknowledge, for less than the minimum wage, obviously they're not benefiting from the minimum wage.

maninasia wrote: »

Even if not living at home you may well be eligible for rent supplement and other welfare.

You may. Or you may not; it's going to depend on your circumstances. And, even if you do, whether e.g. the receipt of rent supplement means you're better off than a low earner in another country depends on how much accommodation costs in that other country, relative to Ireland. Even with the rent supplement, it's entirely possible that a low earner in Ireland is more rent-stressed than a low earner in another country.

maninasia wrote: »

In countries like the US where minimum wage is much lower they often get no proper health insurance and they usually have to have a car to drive to work. Life is much much harder for those folks.

Folks in the UK are also much worse off.

Sure, at least as regards the US. But I think your initial claim requires us to look beyond the Anglosphere.

The bottom line, I think, is that being a minimum-wage earner in any economy is not going to be a barrel of laughs. To determine who is best off and who is worst requires a lot more than just a simplistic comparison of minimum wage levels. In fact it's probably quite a difficult thing to do, since it involves value judgments that people will not necessarily agree about. For example, if we find that most minimum wage-earners are living with extended family, is this (a) good, because it means the enjoy the economies of scale and the social support associated with family structures, or (b) bad, because it means they cannot support themselves as independent adults and have reduced opportunity to establish their own family units?

If we drop the rather difficult-to-define concept of "better off" and just look at who enjoys the most generous minimum wage, I suggest the appropriate comparison is the minimum wage expressed in relation to typical earnings for the economy concerned. (A minimum wage which is high in absolute terms may still leave you suffering significant poverty and social exclusion if you live in a high-earning, high-spending economy.) This table from the OECD ranks OECD members in terms of their minimum wage in relation to median earnings. On this measure, the most generous minimum wage is in Columbia; the least generous is in the United States. Ireland is ranked towards the bottom, 25th out of 33 countries. Canada, the UK, Germany and France are all ahead of us. The most generous minimum wage in the Anglosphere is paid in New Zealand, followed by Australia; the least generous in the US. The most generous minimum wage in the EU is paid in France; the least generous in Spain.

maninasia

I simply don't agree with the idea of 'generous minimum wage'.
The nominal amount per hour matters most especially after tax earnings . In that regard Ireland is definitely top 5 in the world!

My point about legal and illegal migrants moving to Ireland to work minimum wage jobs is because they can live 10 or 20 to a house and come out with good cash savings from their perspective. They would not move to Colombia for this daft notion of 'generous minimum wage'. For native Irish most won't and don't need to live like that.

Colombia's minimum wage is 1.18 USD/hour!
Irelands wage is 9.32 times Colombia's ,meaning you would need to work 9.32 the hours to get the same money into your hand as Colombia!
You would need to work more than nine months for the same nominal amount as 1 month in Ireland.
Working 8 hours a day in Colombia you would get slightly more than 9 euros. Not going to get you very far anywhere is it?

Peregrinus

Nonsense. What matters in the level of the minimum wage relative to earnings in the economy concerned, and to the cost of living in that economy. The notion that the proper level of the minimum wage should be set by reference to how it would look to an illegal immigrant is ridiculous. Setting the minimum wage by reference to this criteria would be a case of a very small tail wagging a very large dog; the minimum wage is not devised as an instrument of immigration policy.

maninasia

Nonsense, so how come there's not a huge rush of people moving to Colombia from Venuzuela and Brazil?

How come they come 1000s of miles across the Atlantic the to work minimum wage jobs in Ireland instead?

How come Irish aren't moving to Colombia to work these generous minimum wage jobs of 1.18 USD/hour?

Peregrinus

maninasia wrote: »

Nonsense, so how come there's not a huge rush of people moving to Colombia from Venuzuela and Brazil?

For all I know, there is. Or, if there isn't, it could be that there are legal, cultural or other barriers to migration. Or, other aspects of Colombian life may militate against this. Or - here's a thought - maybe the minimum wage isn't the huge driver of migration that you seem to assume?

maninasia wrote: »

How come they come 1000s of miles across the Atlantic the to work minimum wage jobs in Ireland instead?

Ireland's a safer country? Ireland offers better jobs, or better study opportunities? The Portugal-Brazil connection makes it easier for them to get into the EU than into Colombia?

maninasia wrote: »

How come Irish aren't moving to Colombia to work these generous minimum wage jobs of 1.18 USD/hour?

For that matter, how come Colombians aren't moving to Ireland in such vast numbers, if the minimum wage is the driver you think it is? i cautiously suggest that your beliefs about this are not evidence-based.

I come back to the point I already made, and you choose to ignore. The minimum wage isn't primarily an instrument of immigration policy. It's not raised or lowered with a view to adjusting migration levels; that is not its function.

We could erode the quality of life for the low-paid in Ireland in a variety of ways in order to reduce immigration, but it does seem like a rather self-destructive policy, doesn't it? And I'm unclear as to why you think we should focus on the minimum wage. There are lots of ways in which we could make life in Ireland more horrible; why do you pick on this one?

blanch152

Peregrinus wrote: »

If we drop the rather difficult-to-define concept of "better off" and just look at who enjoys the most generous minimum wage, I suggest the appropriate comparison is the minimum wage expressed in relation to typical earnings for the economy concerned. (A minimum wage which is high in absolute terms may still leave you suffering significant poverty and social exclusion if you live in a high-earning, high-spending economy.) This table from the OECD ranks OECD members in terms of their minimum wage in relation to median earnings. On this measure, the most generous minimum wage is in Columbia; the least generous is in the United States. Ireland is ranked towards the bottom, 25th out of 33 countries. Canada, the UK, Germany and France are all ahead of us. The most generous minimum wage in the Anglosphere is paid in New Zealand, followed by Australia; the least generous in the US. The most generous minimum wage in the EU is paid in France; the least generous in Spain.

It is not as simple as that.

The mere fact that a basket case such as Colombia ends up with the most generous minimum wage shows the futility of your measurement. A proper assessment would take into account, both the absolute level of the minimum wage as already pointed, the relationship with median earnings as you suggest, but also some element of the level of social protection. Even then, how do you conclude which is best for society, especially if you wish to reward those who work hardest?

Turned into a decent discussion of the average wage of Venezuela, this

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

maninasia wrote: »

Nonsense, so how come there's not a huge rush of people moving to Colombia from Venuzuela and Brazil?

There are millions of illegal Venezuelan immigrants in Colombia and more come every day. It's been all over the news for months.

blanch152 wrote: »

It is not as simple as that.

The mere fact that a basket case such as Colombia ends up with the most generous minimum wage shows the futility of your measurement. A proper assessment would take into account, both the absolute level of the minimum wage as already pointed, the relationship with median earnings as you suggest, but also some element of the level of social protection. Even then, how do you conclude which is best for society, especially if you wish to reward those who work hardest?

It's hardly fair to describe Colombia as a 'basket case' considering the changes that have come over the country in recent years. It's currently a safer place than many of its neighbours and has a stronger economy than almost anywhere else in Latin America.

Peregrinus

blanch152 wrote: »

A proper assessment would take into account, both the absolute level of the minimum wage as already pointed, the relationship with median earnings as you suggest, but also some element of the level of social protection.

I agree. And, in addition to those things, the cost of living, in particular the cost of the basics of life, and the accessibility of oppportunities to improve your position so that you don't always have to be a low-earner. So whether low earners are better off in Ireland than in some other country may actually involve quite a complex judgment, and a useful answer may have to be more than a simple "yes" or "no".

blanch152 wrote: »

Even then, how do you conclude which is best for society, especially if you wish to reward those who work hardest?

That's a good point, but a whole different point. The question raised by maninasia is whether Ireland is, relatively speaking, the best country to be in if you are a low-paid worker. Whether being a good place for low-paid workers is a good thing for society at large is a whole other question. In order to be a good place for low-paid workers, what does a society have to pay or sacrifice, what compromises has it made, and is that justified, given the outcome? Maninasia is preoccupied with the effect that a favourable position for low earners has on people's migration choices. I've said before that I think that's a small tail wagging a very large dog, but there could certainly be other issues that we need to be considering here, like the effect on incentives to improve one's earnings.
'

Geuze

Geuze wrote: »

2016 earnings data published just now.

http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/elca/earningsandlabourcostsannualdata2016/

Average earnings = 36,919, up 400 from 2015

Average for full-time workers = 45,611

Average in industry = 44,821

2017 data published this week

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/elca/earningsandlabourcostsannualdata2017/

Average earnings, both PT and FT workers:

2015 = 36,458
2016 = 36,920
2017 = 37,646


Average for full-time workers

2015 = 45,059
2016 = 45,627
2017 = 46,402

Five year growth rates = 4.3-4.4%




Definition: Wages and Salaries

All wages and salaries payments are gross (i.e. before deduction of income tax and employees' PRSI contributions and levies such as the public sector pension levy). In the analysis, the total wages and salaries are divided into:

- Regular earnings: payments made regularly at each pay period during the year, excluding all irregular and overtime earnings.

- Overtime earnings: payment for hours worked in excess of normal hours.

- Total earnings excluding irregular earnings: regular earnings + overtime earnings.

- Irregular earnings: bonuses which are not paid regularly at each pay period. For example: end of quarter or year productivity bonus.

- Apprentice/Trainees earnings: total of apprentices & trainees' regular wages and salaries, overtime and irregular bonuses and allowances.

- Total earnings: total of regular earnings, overtime earnings and irregular earnings.

Geuze

Average hourly earnings have crossed 23 euro, SA.

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/elcq/earningsandlabourcostsq22018finalq32018preliminaryestimates/

Average weekly earnings approaching 750.



Wages and Salaries

All wages and salaries payments are gross (i.e. before deduction of income tax and employees’ PRSI contributions and levies such as the public sector pension levy). In the analysis, the total wages and salaries are divided into:

- Regular earnings: payments made regularly at each pay period during the year, excluding all irregular and overtime earnings.

- Overtime earnings: payment for hours worked in excess of normal hours.

- Total earnings excluding irregular earnings: regular earnings + overtime earnings.

- Irregular earnings: bonuses which are not paid regularly at each pay period. For example: end of quarter or year productivity bonus.

- Apprentices/Trainees earnings: total of apprentices & trainees' regular wages and salaries, overtime and irregular bonuses and allowances.

- Total earnings: total of regular earnings, overtime earnings and irregular earnings.