Crazy allowances or perks

Sheldons Brain

The average public sector wage is 1.5 times the wage of the average private sector person. When these are on a par maybe we could consider it not a perk.

Jobs have perks, not groups of people. There hundreds of thousands of people involved in different professions and these averages are uninformative.

The pension levy goes no where near what needs to be done to fund the entitlements the public sector have promised themselves in the future.

Really?. According to yourself, the average above means the PS average pension is about €12000 p.a. Someone on the average salary would have paid enough levy and pension to fund such a pension for 22 years, but would be expected only live for 16-17 years post retirement. There may be refinements needed in this calculation but it is not "nowhere near" and any decent employer makes some contributions to employee pensions.

Geuze

Note that of course average PS wages will be higher than average private sector wages - this is the case everywhere.

PS workers are on average:

older
better educated
more qualified
more experienced

The ESRI have studied this, and after making the above adjustments, there is still a PS wage premium.

It's hard to estimate, but they suggest 10-15%.

Note that this study was done before the HRA paycuts.

Geuze

bar32 wrote: »

I've heard this often before but just want to see if it's true, does someone in Private Sector on roughly 37000 take home much more net pay per week? Net pay of this particular teacher is 505 a week. What would a private sector person's gross salary have to be to earn 500 net per week?

It's likely that they would take home more, due to differences in pension conts.

PS workers must pay the normal 6.5% pension cont, plus the 10% pension levy PRD.

Many non-PS workers don't have occupational pensions, so of course their net would be higher.

But then again, they won't get a work pension in the future.

Thoie

bar32 wrote: »

Just for the record. Payslip of a primary teacher. 4 years teaching.
Gross annual pay 36,738

Gross fortnightly pay: 1413
Net fortnightly pay: 1009

Statutory Deductions per fortnight:
Tax :133
Employers PRSI : 57
1.5% SP. & CH - Pen : 22
USC : 73
Pension Related Deduction: 74
Pension - Grouped: 38

Non - Statutory Deductions per fortnight:
INTO Union : 14

I've heard this often before but just want to see if it's true, does someone in Private Sector on roughly 37000 take home much more net pay per week? Net pay of this particular teacher is 505 a week. What would a private sector person's gross salary have to be to earn 500 net per week?

From taxcalc.eu, a private (A1) sector employee with a gross salary of 36,738 would take home €1,096 nett per fortnight, before they pay a pension. If they pay 112 per fortnight into a pension (2,912 per year), then their fortnightly take home pay is €1030. However in general that low a pension payment will leave them with an extremely **** pension when they retire.

So at the moment the private sector employee is €21 a fortnight better off than the public sector employee, but their pension provision is crap. The public sector will end up with a much better pension on retirement.

For a breakdown, the private sector employee's payslip would look like this:
Gross annual: 36738
Gross fortnight: 1413
Nett fortnight: 1030

Pension & deduction: €112
Income levy/USC: €73
PRSI & Health: €57
Tax : €142


If the private sector was also paying a union sub of €14, then the difference would come down to €7 a fortnight. Many people would happily pay an extra €14 a month for PS pension benefits.

Sleepy

Also the private sector worker (or most non-teachers) would be contracted for longer hours and lower holidays.

The glut of qualified teachers who can't find work is proof positive that we overpay teachers in this country. Supply exceeds Demand. Economics 101 says that price should fall.

smelly sock

The absolute majority of private sector workers would not in the good times have got out of bed for what the equivalent in the public sector was earning.

That's pure fact.

Now, because the good times have left a lot of them up the s****r without a paddle they want us still low paid PS workers to get a kicking.

Well f**k off. You guys had the good times, now pay for them yourselves.

smelly sock

rumour wrote: »

This to me is the craziest of all perks for a country that has to tax excessively and borrow excessively to exist, direct from the CSO

2012 Q4
Average Public Sector Weekly Wage €921.99
Average Private Sector Weekly Wage €623.43

Add to that;
Public Sector Pensions are not accounted for in weekly wage.
Private Sector must pay for a pension out of weekly wage.

These two issues are the craziest perks ever developed by the Irish Public Sector based on not much more that something like "because I'm worth it"

2012 Q4
Average Public Sector Weekly Wage €921.99.......minus the low paid public sector employees obviously!!

Thoie

smelly sock wrote: »

The absolute majority of private sector workers would not in the good times have got out of bed for what the equivalent in the public sector was earning.

That's pure fact.

Where could I find a copy of that survey?

Scortho

smelly sock wrote: »

The absolute majority of private sector workers would not in the good times have got out of bed for what the equivalent in the public sector was earning.

That's pure fact.

Now, because the good times have left a lot of them up the s****r without a paddle they want us still low paid PS workers to get a kicking.

Well f**k off. You guys had the good times, now pay for them yourselves.

Big issue with your post....the state is borrowing money it doesn't have to pay wages, because taxes don't cover all of the states expenditure.

Borrowing money long term to fund states expenditure, is never going to end well and in reality the state should only be borrowing to fund investment. If it was a private company that had been borrowing continuously for the last few years to fund its expenditure, the banks would have called in the loans and either sold it off (and jobs lost) or put it into liquidation (and more jobs lost).

So what some private sector workers are getting at, is that either the state cuts ps jobs or else cuts ps wages and services across the board (and in a progressive way) in order to stop borrowing to fund day to day expenses.

smelly sock

Thoie wrote: »

Where could I find a copy of that survey?

Common knowledge my friend.

In 2004 would you have worked 35 hours per week for 320 net pay?

skydish79

Sleepy wrote: »

Also the private sector worker (or most non-teachers) would be contracted for longer hours and lower holidays.

The glut of qualified teachers who can't find work is proof positive that we overpay teachers in this country. Supply exceeds Demand. Economics 101 says that price should fall.

wow I have seen some stupid statements but this has to be one of my top

There are more teachers than jobs because we have increased class sizes, we have farmed out training teachers to the private sector and they keep churning teachers out to make money

smelly sock

Scortho wrote: »

Big issue with your post....the state is borrowing money it doesn't have to pay wages, because taxes don't cover all of the states expenditure.

Borrowing money long term to fund states expenditure, is never going to end well and in reality the state should only be borrowing to fund investment. If it was a private company that had been borrowing continuously for the last few years to fund its expenditure, the banks would have called in the loans and either sold it off (and jobs lost) or put it into liquidation (and more jobs lost).

So what some private sector workers are getting at, is that either the state cuts ps jobs or else cuts ps wages and services across the board (and in a progressive way) in order to stop borrowing to fund day to day expenses.

True. But what exactly was the cause of this?

I agree that a lot of the allowances in the PS are BS and should be scrapped. Private sector workers need to realise that low paid PS workers didn't cause this mess and are struggling also.

Thoie

smelly sock wrote: »

Common knowledge my friend.

In 2004 would you have worked 35 hours per week for 320 net pay?

You said it was fact - common knowledge is not the same as fact.

I'd have to check my records for exact figures, but in 2004 I was earning approx €350 a week nett, and working from 8am to 6pm with half an hour for lunch and 2x 15 minutes breaks, so that's 45 hours a week. That was a salaried position, with degree qualifications. Occasional overtime was required, and as it was a salaried position, there were no overtime payments.

While people in the construction industry, for example, may have had larger salaries during that period, not every industry went mad.

TL;DR - yes, in a heartbeat.

smelly sock

Thoie wrote: »

You said it was fact - common knowledge is not the same as fact.

I'd have to check my records for exact figures, but in 2004 I was earning approx €350 a week nett, and working from 8am to 6pm with half an hour for lunch and 2x 15 minutes breaks, so that's 45 hours a week. That was a salaried position, with degree qualifications. Occasional overtime was required, and as it was a salaried position, there were no overtime payments.

While people in the construction industry, for example, may have had larger salaries during that period, not every industry went mad.

TL;DR - yes, in a heartbeat.

How much do you earn now? You can include any bonus you may get also.

smelly sock

Anyway, this is going nowhere.

Off now for a 60 minutes tea break. Hit google again after that.

Scortho

smelly sock wrote: »

True. But what exactly was the cause of this?

I agree that a lot of the allowances in the PS are BS and should be scrapped. Private sector workers need to realise that low paid PS workers didn't cause this mess and are struggling also.

The cause? Wages increasing exponentially during to Celtic Tiger.
While the state was taking in more taxes at the time to pay these increased wages (as well as increased social welfare payments pension, child benefit, dole, etc) when the tax revenues fell, expenditure didn't fall by a proportionate amount.
Borrowing year in, year out to keep the lights on, isn't sustainable.

Scortho

smelly sock wrote: »

How much do you earn now? You can include any bonus you may get also.

Does it matter?
He could be unemployed and earning significantly less than what he was on in 2007 (a lot of former private sector workers are) or he could be one 100k.
Difference is if he's on 100k, the company he's working for aren't borrowing to pay his wage and if they are, he won't be on 100k for long

rumour

smelly sock wrote: »

2012 Q4
Average Public Sector Weekly Wage €921.99.......minus the low paid public sector employees obviously!!

There is no minus, some public sector employees fare pretty badly, that is true, but the average is far in excess of the average for the private sector.

In an egalitarian society I would have thought these should be more or less the same as one is paid for by the other. This however is consistently not the case.

Consistently the Government and Unions exploit headlines such 'front line services etc' to neuter any discussion on this. It even happens here on these boards. Tinkering with the salaries of people on 30-50k a year does not alter the averages significantly, it is those on 70k plus which drive these averages to where they are. But these people are much more politically active and better represented by the unelected unions, hence we never have any movement or discussion on these issues.
Much much better to point everyone that can be easily categorised as a welfare defendant than confront the issue why we are borrowing to supplement salaries in the public sector in the hope that the poorer private sector will pay them off some day. Grossly irresponsible if not manifestly unjust in my opinion.

Thoie

Anyway, going back to the original question, take a look at the Flat Rate Expenses list here: http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/employee-expenses.html

They're basically an additional tax credit negotiated by unions/special interest groups over the years. The amounts can be pretty small (for example a Building Industry engineer/surveyor gets €33 a year extra tax credit, just for existing), but others are larger.

Being a member of the RTE National Symphony Orchestra or the RTE Concert Orchestra gains you an extra 2,476 in your pocket a year (though I doubt the salaries are great to start with). Miners/shift bosses underground, mill process workers and steam cleaners get €1,312

The funniest ones, as already mentioned, are people like nurses, nursing assistants, occupational therapists etc. There are allowances based on whether your uniform is supplied, and whether it's laundered for you. But there's also an allowance for the people whose uniforms are both supplied and laundered - presumably because they were feeling left out

The weirdest one is the fact that female cardiac technicians get nearly double what male cardiac technicians receive.

smelly sock

Scortho wrote: »

Does it matter?
He could be unemployed and earning significantly less than what he was on in 2007 (a lot of former private sector workers are) or he could be one 100k.
Difference is if he's on 100k, the company he's working for aren't borrowing to pay his wage and if they are, he won't be on 100k for long

That question is in context. The context of the debate being, would he in 2003 have taken a job in the PS or would he now. If it's as cushy as everyone makes out.

Michael D Not Higgins

Thoie wrote: »

The funniest ones, as already mentioned, are people like nurses, nursing assistants, occupational therapists etc. There are allowances based on whether your uniform is supplied, and whether it's laundered for you. But there's also an allowance for the people whose uniforms are both supplied and laundered - presumably because they were feeling left out

I'd understand about the laundering, as nurses would have to get all sorts of bodily fluids out of their uniforms.

The other expenses are not clarified for what they are, just that they're lower because the uniform and laundering is provided.

Thoie

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

I'd understand about the laundering, as nurses would have to get all sorts of bodily fluids out of their uniforms.

The other expenses are not clarified for what they are, just that they're lower because the uniform and laundering is provided.

Oh yes, besides the obvious bodily fluids, you want to make sure that hospital workers clothes are clean, to help stop the spread of infection. The list specifically refers to uniforms and laundering though, so it's hard to imagine why people who don't have to provide either get an allowance. It's a tiny amount, but from the outside it looks like a sop. An allowance for not being eligible for an allowance

Michael D Not Higgins

Thoie wrote: »

Oh yes, besides the obvious bodily fluids, you want to make sure that hospital workers clothes are clean, to help stop the spread of infection. The list specifically refers to uniforms and laundering though, so it's hard to imagine why people who don't have to provide either get an allowance. It's a tiny amount, but from the outside it looks like a sop. An allowance for not being eligible for an allowance

But you can work out the difference. The base rate for nurses is €258, an extra €95 if you do your own laundry and an extra €380 if you get your own uniform.

It doesn't specify what the base rate is to cover, but has obviously been agreed with the union at some stage. This doesn't mean it should be there but we just don't know what the €258 is for.

RobbieTheRobber

Scortho wrote: »

Borrowing year in, year out to keep the lights on, isn't sustainable.

Don't most countries Borrow year in year out?
Isn't the EU's plan for a sustainable future to only run a budget deficit of 3%?

srsly78

RobbieTheRobber wrote: »

Don't most countries Borrow year in year out?
Isn't the EU's plan for a sustainable future to only run a budget deficit of 3%?

Most countries roll over their debt yes. This means they pay back old loans and take new loans, without actually increasing their total debt. This is different from running a deficit and increasing the total debt like we do tho.

RobbieTheRobber

srsly78 wrote: »

Most countries roll over their debt yes. This means they pay back old loans and take new loans, without actually increasing their total debt. This is different from running a deficit and increasing the total debt like we do tho.

So one might say that they borrow year in year out?

srsly78

You might say whatever you want but the debt pile is either increasing or decreasing or static. Even if it's decreasing a government might still be issuing new bonds!

The actual way bonds work means they have to be paid off and new ones issued, they have a fixed term. If you don't pay them off at the end of the term then that's a sovereign default!

Geuze

rumour wrote: »

There is no minus, some public sector employees fare pretty badly, that is true, but the average is far in excess of the average for the private sector.

In an egalitarian society I would have thought these should be more or less the same as one is paid for by the other. This however is consistently not the case.

Correct, it's not the case, and nobody is suggesting that it should be the case.

Average wages in PS and non-PS will never be the same, for normal, simple, non-controversial reasons.

The PS contains large sections where a degree or prof qualification is required, with high skills, so clearly wages will be higher.

The PS contains thousands of doctors, for example. Their salaries pull up the PS average. OK, their are some non-PS doctors, but it's inevitable that PS wages will be higher.

Geuze

RobbieTheRobber wrote: »

Don't most countries Borrow year in year out?
Isn't the EU's plan for a sustainable future to only run a budget deficit of 3%?

Yes, more or less.

It's possible to run small public deficits each year, and at the same time maintain a stable debt-to-GDP ratio.

Lots of countries do that.

Geuze

Thoie wrote: »

Anyway, going back to the original question, take a look at the Flat Rate Expenses list here: http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/employee-expenses.html

They're basically an additional tax credit negotiated by unions/special interest groups over the years. The amounts can be pretty small (for example a Building Industry engineer/surveyor gets €33 a year extra tax credit, just for existing), but others are larger.

Being a member of the RTE National Symphony Orchestra or the RTE Concert Orchestra gains you an extra 2,476 in your pocket a year (though I doubt the salaries are great to start with). Miners/shift bosses underground, mill process workers and steam cleaners get €1,312

Incorrect.

Note that these are not tax credits, so they are not worth their face value.

They are a tax-free allowance.

So a 100 expenses tax-free allowance means a tax saving of 20 or 41 euro.

flutered

in the budget tds senators, higher civil servents, judges, county managers, have not had their pensions capped at 60k like the lower orders in the food chain, yes they can collect their +100k and rising ones, oh yes our health minister and his ilk do not have to pay the property tax, neither do people with obscene amounts of land, again it is only the house dewellers from the lower orders.

Geuze

flutered wrote: »

ones, oh yes our health minister and his ilk do not have to pay the property tax

Incorrect.

TDs and Ministers pay the LPT on their houses, same as you or me.

Geuze

flutered wrote: »

in the budget tds senators, higher civil servents, judges, county managers, have not had their pensions capped at 60k.

It's legally / constitutionally very difficult impossible to reduce accumulated past entitlements.

I'm all for trying to do it, though.

ardmacha

flutered wrote:

in the budget tds senators, higher civil servents, judges, county managers, have not had their pensions capped at 60k.

Neither has people in the private sector with defined benefit pensions.

Geuze wrote: »

It's legally / constitutionally very difficult impossible to reduce accumulated past entitlements.

I'm all for trying to do it, though.

It isn't really moral to attempt to do this. You say to someone, work for us and this is the deal and then when they are old and need to avail of this you decide to just change it.

These people's arrangements were always in the public domain, people voted for governments which made these arrangements.

murphaph

smelly sock wrote: »

The absolute majority of private sector workers would not in the good times have got out of bed for what the equivalent in the public sector was earning.

That's pure fact.

Now, because the good times have left a lot of them up the s****r without a paddle they want us still low paid PS workers to get a kicking.

Well f**k off. You guys had the good times, now pay for them yourselves.

This has been debunked several times on here. The public jobs were always massively oversubscribed, even during the boom years, which proves that private sector workers were more than happy to work in the public sector all along (there will be exceptions with certain roles of course, but on the whole there were many more job applicants than jobs available).

Riskymove

Geuze wrote: »

It's legally / constitutionally very difficult impossible to reduce accumulated past entitlements.

I'm all for trying to do it, though.

I think recent actions on Public sector pensions and pay have shown this is not true

it can be changed at a stroke of a pen

Domenkidu

rumour wrote: »

This to me is the craziest of all perks for a country that has to tax excessively and borrow excessively to exist, direct from the CSO

2012 Q4
Average Public Sector Weekly Wage €921.99
Average Private Sector Weekly Wage €623.43

Add to that;
Public Sector Pensions are not accounted for in weekly wage.
Private Sector must pay for a pension out of weekly wage.

These two issues are the craziest perks ever developed by the Irish Public Sector based on not much more that something like "because I'm worth it"

I note that the sector by sector breakdowns are neatly avoided, for example the average weekly salary in the financial and insurance sector is over 1000 Euro for that period, pretty much all of which would be private sector and a significant proportion of which would be for insolvent institutions who are borrowing vast amounts of taxpayers money. Also you fail to mention that these statistics only include employees working for a salary and not directors, partners, consultants etc. (see "definitions") on p. 21, which would skew the private sector figures downwards as the most senior private sector earners - as well as most self employed I would assume - would be outside the scope of the statistics, all Public Sector staff, on the other hand, are on annual salary, so of course the figure is going to be higher - it doesn't have the top earners removed.

This doesn't, of course, mean that there shouldn't be discussion surrounding public sector pay still - but it does show that headline statistics are easily manipulated or cherrypicked to fit an agenda.

Riskymove

Domenkidu wrote: »

This doesn't, of course, mean that there shouldn't be discussion surrounding public sector pay still - but it does show that headline statistics are easily manipulated or cherrypicked to fit an agenda.

look, its been 5 years of this now

some people just refuse to acknowledge the pointlessness of using these averages in such a way....it simply suits an agenda and people wont give it up

ardmacha

some people just refuse to acknowledge the pointlessness of using these averages in such a way....it simply suits an agenda and people wont give it up

Whatever about people ranting here on this forum, the disappointing thing is that so called responsible media outlets rarely rise above this level of analysis and there has been little if any insight into the real situation. After 5 years this lack of interest in useful data is depressing.

Sleepy

skydish79 wrote: »

wow I have seen some stupid statements but this has to be one of my top

There are more teachers than jobs because we have increased class sizes, we have farmed out training teachers to the private sector and they keep churning teachers out to make money

And would those colleges have had an excessive number of customers if the jobs they were training people for weren't so attractive?

Thoie wrote: »

The weirdest one is the fact that female cardiac technicians get nearly double what male cardiac technicians receive.

How in the name of the flying spaghetti monster is that legal?

Neon_Lights

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Untaxed is fair enough - it's not income.

It can be liquidated seeing as its unvouched, technically then it could become income

Thoie

Sleepy wrote: »

How in the name of the flying spaghetti monster is that legal?

No idea. If it was x-ray technicians I could see a case for bigger lead aprons, but I really don't know. Maybe male cardiac technicians work topless?

Riskymove

Sleepy wrote: »

How in the name of the flying spaghetti monster is that legal?

well its not income but an expense

the logical answer is that women for some reason need to get something more expensive for the job

there is no other way it could be legal

srsly78

Women's white labcoats must be more expensive than mens... Also they spend more on makeup etc. This is important stuff, noone wants a scruffy doctor!

Jawgap

murphaph wrote: »

This has been debunked several times on here. The public jobs were always massively oversubscribed, even during the boom years, which proves that private sector workers were more than happy to work in the public sector all along (there will be exceptions with certain roles of course, but on the whole there were many more job applicants than jobs available).

Not my experience in the bit of the PS I worked in. We always struggled to get people to take jobs in the first instance and retain them in the second instance until 2008.......


.......then the embargo on recruitment took care of that problem for us:)

skydish79

Sleepy wrote: »

And would those colleges have had an excessive number of customers if the jobs they were training people for weren't so attractive?


How in the name of the flying spaghetti monster is that legal?

look you don;t know what you're talking about, your just talking out of your arse

rumour

Domenkidu wrote: »

I note that the sector by sector breakdowns are neatly avoided, for example the average weekly salary in the financial and insurance sector is over 1000 Euro for that period, pretty much all of which would be private sector and a significant proportion of which would be for insolvent institutions who are borrowing vast amounts of taxpayers money. Also you fail to mention that these statistics only include employees working for a salary and not directors, partners, consultants etc. (see "definitions") on p. 21, which would skew the private sector figures downwards as the most senior private sector earners - as well as most self employed I would assume - would be outside the scope of the statistics, all Public Sector staff, on the other hand, are on annual salary, so of course the figure is going to be higher - it doesn't have the top earners removed.

This doesn't, of course, mean that there shouldn't be discussion surrounding public sector pay still - but it does show that headline statistics are easily manipulated or cherrypicked to fit an agenda.

Frankly the above is a long winded smoke screen.The averages are a good test (i will admit I'm relying on the integrity of the CSO to do this in a transparent and consistent manner with other countries). Perhaps you should check how other countries from developed economies fare with these two averages.

K-9

skydish79 wrote: »

look you don;t know what you're talking about, your just talking out of your arse

Mod:

Enough of these type of responses and that goes for everybody, either put some thought or point into responses or don't waste your and everybody else's time.

skydish79

K-9 wrote: »

Mod:

Enough of these type of responses and that goes for everybody, either put some thought or point into responses or don't waste your and everybody else's time.

It would be great if he actually actually made sense and knew the industry he was talking about

My point was all be crudely made is that he doesn't know what he is talking about

Private education providers don't care about what the opportunities are or how much their consumers are paid , they just care about churning out as many teachers as they can to make money

the consumers join the course for many reasons ( ease of access, hope of job, cheaper than going to college etc) not just his narrow minded view of why people choose to do a course

In my opinion he has put little or no thought into his responses, no research; he has a clear agenda just to rile others

Gumbo

skydish79 wrote: »

It would be great if he actually actually made sense and knew the industry he was talking about

My point was all be crudely made is that he doesn't know what he is talking about

Private education providers don't care about what the opportunities are or how much their consumers are paid , they just care about churning out as many teachers as they can to make money

the consumers join the course for many reasons ( ease of access, hope of job, cheaper than going to college etc) not just his narrow minded view of why people choose to do a course

In my opinion he has put little or no thought into his responses, no research; he has a clear agenda just to rile others

Don't get your knickers in a twist, there are many more posters on here that do the same thing. You'll get used to it.