The 350 a week was a catastrophic and costly mistake

na1

Geuze wrote: »

Earnings distribution, 2018

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eaads/earningsanalysisusingadministrativedatasources2018/

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eaads/earningsanalysisusingadministrativedatasources2018/distribution/


It looks to me like the lowest quarter earned less than 367 pw?

About 19,150 pa.

These are mostly teenagers / students / part-timers, etc.

And some of the self-employed, who 'declare' their income to the taxman

na1

ronoc wrote: »

350 for people who earn less than that the difference will likely go straight back into the economy. Consider it a stimulus measure.

Its just a matter of WHO is spending:
you can get the same extra money to working people and they will spend them back to the economy.

na1

Sam Quentin wrote: »

Why in God's name would anyone publicly say/admit that they want people to suffer financial ruin because our country was locked down by a World wide pandemic,.and we now have no income. Like why would you wish that on anyone!?
If it must be paid back,then so be it. I think most are so appreciative of it and could not fault the Government for making such a move. One person I know has told me they would gladly pay 50€ a month when he's up and working again. He doesn't know anything about it being repaid and it was just an of the cuff remark.

I personally think that the payment should be proportional to the previous earnings. And I didn't see any explanation why it is not possible?
Every working person in this country has his/her income calculated on the annual base by the revenue, and they do have periodic auditions. Why can't this be applied to covid payments? for example at the end of the year.

Plumbthedepths

na1 wrote: »

I personally think that the payment should be proportional to the previous earnings. And I didn't see any explanation why it is not possible?
Every working person in this country has his/her income calculated on the annual base by the revenue, and they do have periodic auditions. Why can't this be applied to covid payments? for example at the end of the year.

So for certain people you would be happy for them to receive significantly more than €350?

keybordWarrior

na1 wrote: »

I personally think that the payment should be proportional to the previous earnings. And I didn't see any explanation why it is not possible?
Every working person in this country has his/her income calculated on the annual base by the revenue, and they do have periodic auditions. Why can't this be applied to covid payments? for example at the end of the year.

Obviously because they had to act quickly, there was no time to be means testing people when jobs were/are being lost left and right.

Plumbthedepths

keybordWarrior wrote: »

Obviously because they had to act quickly, there was no time to be means testing people when jobs were/are being lost left and right.

You're wasting your time, that explanation sails right over the head of several here.

na1

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

So for certain people you would be happy for them to receive significantly more than €350?

Of course! Why not? At the end of the day they earned and paid way more taxes on it! Keep in mind progressive taxation.

na1

keybordWarrior wrote: »

Obviously because they had to act quickly, there was no time to be means testing people when jobs were/are being lost left and right.

I'm talking about self-assessment
When you pay tax, they accept any amount you pay on a weekly/monthly basis. but at the end of the year (or even in a few years) they can evaluate what you actually own them

Plumbthedepths

na1 wrote: »

Of course! Why not? At the end of the day they earned and payed a way more taxes on it! Keep in mind progressive taxation.

Even in a pandemic the willingness to punch downwards still exists. Either you are still employed or have nothing but contempt for those you consider beneath you.
I'm still working but thankfully the government decided to help those people they forced out of a job and policy wasn't dictated by individuals that share your mindset.

na1

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

Even in a pandemic the willingness to punch downwards still exists. Either you are still employed or have nothing but contempt for those you consider beneath you.
I'm still working but thankfully the government decided to help those people they forced out of a job and policy wasn't dictated by individuals that share your mindset.

Did you read what I said?
If the person has lost his/her job his/her spending didn't change. He/she still owns the loans/mortgage/rent payment. If the person was getting 100k a year, he/she can't survive on 350/week
If the person was working 15 hours per week on 10/per hour he or she is getting MORE money then they've earned before. And definitely won't apply for a new job. (currently the supermarkets are struggling to get the part-time staff)

Plumbthedepths

na1 wrote: »

Did you read what I said?
If the person has lost his/her job his/her spending didn't change. He/she still owns the loans/mortgage/rent payment. If the person was getting 100k a year, he/she can't survive on 350/week
If the person was working 15 hours per week on 10/per hour he or she is getting MORE money then they've earned before. And definitely won't apply for a new job. (currently the supermarkets are struggling to get the part-time staff)

How many times do you and others need to be told the PUP is not permanent but time limited. If the government want people back at work. It's simple allow businesses to reopen and stop the payment.
Very few businesses that pay a decent wage have trouble recruiting staff.
Have you applied for one of those unfilled Supermarket jobs you are so concerned about?

RandomViewer

KyussB wrote: »

If people don't want the job they don't have to take it, they scan go to standard unemployment payments - nobody would be forcing anyone to do a thing.

We've just got the standard anti-government-everything crowd opposing it, by throwing up random obstacles lacking any credibility.

Basic materials, for basic PPE, cost next to nothing - you can improvise masks out of paper tissues on a DIY basis even - you don't need N95 for everyone.

PPE has to be to a recognised standard, stitching needs to be standardised, hospitals can't use something you stitched from skid marked boxers, have you any idea how much is actually involved in manufacturing anything and the pay rates mandated for certain categories of worker in manufacturing?

RandomViewer

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

How many times do you and others need to be told the PUP is not permanent but time limited. If the government want people back at work. It's simple allow businesses to reopen and stop the payment.
Very few businesses that pay a decent wage have trouble recruiting staff.
Have you applied for one of those unfilled Supermarket jobs you are so concerned about?

Supervalu would be one of the big offenders, hardly any staff on full contracts , fxxk others about with half days or split shifts, wouldn't blame any of them for taking the payment

bellylint

Yea love this thread, lets let some people sink into a world of debt, because some people might abuse a system.
Fck me, the op claims he has a masters in this economics, look at the track record of economists in this world and they have a pretty low batting average.
I'd rather be part of a generous state than somewhere like the states. We have it bad already enough here with issues like homelessness and a high poverty rate... but let them all fcking burn because the OP doenst think we should look after those that are in real need, because there might be an arguably low percentage of people who will burn their job, to get 350 a week.
I give you an 'Economist' using academic terms to veil his contempt.

Salty

I am one of the people receiving the covid payment, and I am thankful for it. It is much, much less than my normal salary so I was relieved when the increase happened as I could easily cover my loan and direct debits. I also had some big expenses crop up during this period such as car tax etc which I was able to cover.

Cannot wait to get back to work. I am still fearful for the future, however.

RandomViewer

na1 wrote: »

I still don't understand: they DO have the capacity to calculate every one's taxes at the end of the year, right?
So why don't they make it a self assessment payment of for example 70% income, where everyone can evaluate how much the state 'owns' them and make a claim?
They DON'T need the resources to evaluate payment, and make anyone get the amount they calculated?

And at the end of the year they can calculate the exact amount for everyone? And if somebody got overpayed - they can claim it back, and if somebody get underpayed - get the refund.

Most taxes are cumulative, people who paid tax up until end of March on 500-600 will have paid more than necessary so far, depending how long the payment lasts and if return to work wages return to pre-lockdown levels a lot of people will pay much less tax this year, if there is an under payment of tax it will just reduce your tax free allowance next year, this myth that people will be asked for a large tax payment at Christmas is total scaremongering by people who should know better

na1

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

How many times do you and others need to be told the PUP is not permanent but time limited. If the government want people back at work. It's simple allow businesses to reopen and stop the payment.

It still doesn't explain why it should be flat rate?
I'm actually in favor of the bigger payments to the people who were on a high pay rate.

na1

RandomViewer wrote: »

Most taxes are cumulative, people who paid tax up until end of March on 500-600 will have paid more than necessary so far, depending how long the payment lasts and if return to work wages return to pre-lockdown levels a lot of people will pay much less tax this year, if there is an under payment of tax it will just reduce your tax free allowance next year, this myth that people will be asked for a large tax payment at Christmas is total scaremongering by people who should know better

Thank you for explaining how the taxation works, now can you explain WHY when you work you pay the taxes proportional to your income (actually progessive tax), but when it comes to losing your income (due to the virus or general redundancy) you get less or equal to those who hardly paid a cent?

Xertz

KyussB wrote: »

It's weird the kind of learned helplessness people have, as soon as it involves government doing anything - suddenly everything becomes far too complicated to achieve, and people can only conceive of it being done with a command economy - as if there is no idle labour, and available resources ready to be used - that suddenly, putting together simple masks or other PPE (that you can do at home on a DIY basis ffs...), becomes a gargantuan task that involves taking control of all business and labour in the whole economy, in order to achieve...

Such slippery slope nonsense - which is obviously ideologically motivated, as being anti-government-everything.

The basic materials for basic PPE equiment, are available in abundance - and we have plenty of manufacturing ability for producing it, as well as more than enough ability to buy and develop the manufacturing equipment needed to produce the higher end PPE - and a gigantic number of unemployed people, many of them skilled in the relevant areas, required to make it all happen.

Instead of blowing €350 quid a week for coronavirus payments - which is worth 28 hours of work at the living wage - we should be employing these people to manufacture, and expand the manufacturing ability, for producing enormous amounts of PPE.

It's socially beneficial, it's economically beneficial, it can be done rapidly with little supply or skill constraints, and right now it's so high in demand that it pays for itself...it's a win-win situation all around, and the only possible objections to it is ideological, from people who oppose government providing jobs for the unemployed.

If there is a market demand for it and a competitive advantage in supplying it locally, it would happen. If there isn’t, it won’t.

If the government just goes out and places unemployed people who’ve completely different skills into some kind of mass state driven labour system to produce textiles, you’re entering a command economy and not free market anymore.

There’s a temporary demand for PPE. If entrepreneurs see an opportunity they’ll follow it. Otherwise, what you’re talking about is basically top down creation of industries that don’t exist.

We also absolutely do not have the manufacturing facilities to do this. The Irish manufacturing sector is very much focused on things like pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, food and very high end electronics - mostly microprocessors.

We’ve almost no textile production capacity and haven’t had for decades. The only textiles we do produce tend to be niche or very high end designer stuff.

The majority of PPE is more suited to industries involved in the mass production of paper goods and also the companies that already produce PPE, like 3M can scale up.

We have one specialist filter manufacture that produces respirator masks, Irema in Limerick and obviously they can scale up.

However, if Coronavirus is managed and then solved, the demand for PPE will then plummet again.

There’s nothing “helpless” in a country doing what it does best, which may not be mass production of cheap materials that it can by.

Income generated per unit labour here is very high. We achieve that by getting maximum effect out of a unit of labour, not by maximising labour.

It often makes far more social and economic sense to focus on what you can do most efficiently, be most competitive and then buy in what you need using the income generated.

What you’re proposing is to compel a large workforce with specialist skills to go into low end manufacturing jobs to be paid the dole. That is not how modern economic works and it’s not how free market, trading economies work.

You’d be heading to Russian style state industries, which invariably end up doing things for political reasons (such as you’re describing) and end up not meeting market demand and being horrendously inefficient.

That’s a recipe to set the economy back decades.

If unemployment doesn’t reduce here you pump all efforts into growing the high value added industries that were already have strength in and try to stimulate the economy we actually have, not reshape it look like Chinese manufacturing. It just makes no sense. We are an extremely expensive place to do that kind of manufacturing and it is something that benefits from enormous global economies of scale.

In terms of employment growth here sectors like cloud computing / services will likely see demand actually increase. I know people who’ve been recruited during the pandemic in that sector.

Medical devices companies could do well.

Biopharma is also likely to do very well. Many of the companies that are likely to make drugs breakthroughs have big presence here.

We aren’t exactly in the worst position when it comes to this. Tourism, hospitality, pubs, retail and so on will see a very bumpy few years ahead but the mass unemployment should curb very rapidly once the furloughed workforces begin to return to the work again and economic activity picks up.

KyussB

RandomViewer wrote: »

PPE has to be to a recognised standard, stitching needs to be standardised, hospitals can't use something you stitched from skid marked boxers, have you any idea how much is actually involved in manufacturing anything and the pay rates mandated for certain categories of worker in manufacturing?

You already know that the bulk of what I'm suggesting isn't for hospital use - you're just spewing out spurious objections based on ideological grounds, as you can't stand the idea of government employment programs.

Basic PPE is piss easy to make, can be completely unskilled, and there's an abundance of the materials required - with loads of manufacturing capacity for more of the basic materials.

Banana Republic 1

Tea drinker wrote: »

This is incorrect, they are just going to be in debt to a different payee. We are already one of the most indebted nations in the developed world so caution is advised.


Just like the USC! Will we be calling the new charge the Univeral Corona Charge?

Debt is intrinsic to capitalism.

Banana Republic 1

na1 wrote: »

Maybe they should get % of their last wage? (same as in most of the world)
you lost your job, you get what you've earned.

I personally know 2 people who're getting 350 'covid payment':
1) has just worked 2-3 weeks in the country on a minimal wage
2) was on a minimal wage job, quit it voluntarily - got 350

What your saying there is the less you earn the less value you has as a human.

KyussB

Xertz wrote: »

...

You don't understand what a command economy is - your only distinction in declariing one, is the government employing people - by your definition, we already live in a command economy, because the government already employs people...

As explained seveeral times, making PPE can be an entirely unskilled proces. Ireland has ample manufacturing resources for basic PPE - we produce plenty of our own paper and tissue material that can be used/adapted for mask making - and there is widepsread availability of the necesary materials on markets, for making the final product here.

We have ample ability to ramp up our manufacturing processes as well - with basic PPE having fairly small ramp up time, since we already have industry skills in this area, and the manufacturing equipment is uncomplicated and in abundant production throughout the world.

Xertz wrote: »

Income generated per unit labour here is very high. We achieve that by getting maximum effect out of a unit of labour, not by maximising labour.

All posters should take note of this: It means this poster would rather have long term high unemployment, than provide people with tempoary jobs.
This is a core feature of economies we live in - the business sector wants this in order to keep wages down, not high as suggested here.

The economy we live in, uses unemployment and the threat of unemployment, to discipline workers into accepting worse conditions and worse pay.


You and others were already told that nobody has to take up the work proposed - that they can stay on unemployment payments instead of working - and that nobody is taken from other industries - and that the work is temporary, not permanent as you are saying.

Several times though, you and others keep repeating the same straw-men - as well as the command-economy straw-man - because your objections are spurious, and you need to embellish them by pretending you're arguing against something completely different.

All major economists are talking about the worst depression since the 1930's - and unemployment levels worldwide are skyrocketing - you have no basis for the claim of a rapid return to Full Employment. The only way that is achievable, is through government employment until the private sector picks up.

Banana Republic 1

na1 wrote: »

I personally think that the payment should be proportional to the previous earnings. And I didn't see any explanation why it is not possible?
Every working person in this country has his/her income calculated on the annual base by the revenue, and they do have periodic auditions. Why can't this be applied to covid payments? for example at the end of the year.

So how much should bono get?

Banana Republic 1

na1 wrote: »

Did you read what I said?
If the person has lost his/her job his/her spending didn't change. He/she still owns the loans/mortgage/rent payment. If the person was getting 100k a year, he/she can't survive on 350/week
If the person was working 15 hours per week on 10/per hour he or she is getting MORE money then they've earned before. And definitely won't apply for a new job. (currently the supermarkets are struggling to get the part-time staff)

Solution: The women who can’t survive on €350 a week could get a job in Lidl or is she worth more as a human then person working 15 hours a week.

You and so many others here seem to think the more you earn the more value your life is to society. If this crisis shows up anything it’s the most important people are not the Hedge fund managers there shop asstiants, street cleaners, hairdressers, nurses, care home staff all of whom are paid a pittance.

Danzy

na1 wrote: »

How does borrowing the money and giving it to the crowd help the economy? Especially when the is no manufacturing or services provided by those who out of work?


Why for example not cancel the income tax? then the working people can spend more money & help the economy?

That you have to ask this is shocking?

Xertz

Seems we are getting as bad as twitter

All posters should take note of this: It means this poster would rather have long term high unemployment, than provide people with tempoary job

Don’t put words in my mouth.

I did not say that I woke prefer to have long term unemployment.

What I said was spending huge amounts of state money on something that will require building factories and attempting to recruit people into a sector that that would be extremely difficult to compete in just makes no sense.

If this industry, which would have to be a state one as (there isn’t very likely to be availability of any investors) were setup, and then it were to produce PPE at a signifiant higher price than the market cost, who’s going to buy it? Should we force the HSE to, this breaching EU and WTO rules on protectionism? We depend on those same market rules for the majority of our economy.

There are plenty of other state interventions can be made to stimulate the economy. Creating entire industries that we currently do not have and that we would struggle (severely) to compete on on price just makes no sense. You might as well just give the people involved money directly as create fake jobs as it doesn’t achieve any kind of sustainable economic activity. You end up with a state subsidy for an industry that can’t exist without it.

We need to stimulate the economy by supporting what we can do well. You don’t go off chasing things in areas where we have a huge competitive disadvantage and low cost manufacturing of goods like this is just not an area where Ireland can realistically compete.

You’re already seeing a huge ramping up of established PPE supply chains to meet demand by broadening manufacturing capacity in supply chains already exist.

There are so many other uses of public money in areas that are can and do compete well in

We are facing a huge Irish, European and global economic mess and a deep recession, but you target your use of public resources at projects that are likely to actually restore the economy. We’ve as much likelihood of becoming a massive manufacturer of PPE as we would have launching a steel industry.

Unless you’re looking at the roll back of world trade and a return to the 1950s, in which case Ireland, as a trading economy with huge dependence on all of that would be doomed anyway, it just makes no sense.

Anyway, fed up with boards at the moment.
Life’s miserable enough and I don’t appreciate a posts being targeted at me like that.

Taking a break from boards. Bye.

na1

Banana Republic 1 wrote: »

What your saying there is the less you earn the less value you has as a human.

How did you come to this conclusion?

what you're saying: even if you buy the first class airline ticket you still deserve the same seat & service as anyone else on the flight.

na1

Danzy wrote: »

That you have to ask this is shocking?

I've just rephrased the other's statement.

na1

Banana Republic 1 wrote: »

Solution: The women who can’t survive on €350 a week could get a job in Lidl or is she worth more as a human then person working 15 hours a week.

You and so many others here seem to think the more you earn the more value your life is to society. If this crisis shows up anything it’s the most important people are not the Hedge fund managers there shop asstiants, street cleaners, hairdressers, nurses, care home staff all of whom are paid a pittance.

Where do I said this?

It is YOU who promotes inequality.

why the person who works 15 hours per week in a shop gets LESS gross payment than the doctor working 60 hours shifts per week? Is he LESS important person?

The woman who can’t survive on €350 already contributed to the society more than 100-s of Lidl shop assistants.
And now when 1000-s of part time workers who barely paying any tax are getting 350 and REFUSING to work, yo're suggesting that they should stay on the dole, and that woman start doing their work?