Low Unemployment Rate not Translating to Better Living Standards

Ireland’s unemployment rate has reached all-time lows and people are not able to experience the benefits. Rising house prices are increasing faster than the raise in wages causing bad living standards for many people. The Central Statistics Office posted an unemployment rate at 4.5% last month. Despite this low number, ICTU President Sheila Nunan is still worried about different groups of people that are affected. She mentioned additional problems like youth joblessness, skills shortages, and low employment levels for women as factors that need to be addressed.

Rent has risen approximately 8% in the last year while wage hikes have averaged about 3% over the same period. Many people are calling for wage hikes to be implemented to allow people to afford rising costs in the housing markets. Rent costs contribute to more than half of minimum living costs in Dublin.

The living wage refers to the wage that people need to earn to be able to afford the minimum basket of goods and services. Few employees have used that number as the starting salary for their employees and instead …

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Judging from cost of living pressures on living wages is wrong

Ibec has claimed that the living wage is not an accurate way to assess cost of living pressure and is a structurally wrong concept to begin with.

The living wage puts a lot of pressure onto the business. Whether the business’s are able to pay is not accounted for in the living wage. This was following the Living Wage technical group, who sets the living wage figure, increased it by 20 cents to €11.70 in Ireland for 2017.

The reason for the increase? It was accounting for the current housing shortage and the increased rent levels.

This is different than the minimum wage set at €9.25 and set by Government’s low pay commission.

The living wage was created in 2014 updated every July. It is ideally the set average wage for full-time employees to cover the minimum cost of living.

It is set by the Living Wage technical group. They consist of researchers and academics and directed by Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice.

It is priced by many factors which include: health insurance cost, food cost, Universal Social Charge weekly …

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