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#socjal w #irlandia

Dear David,

I am a 54-year-old sales & marketing executive who has now been out of work for just over four years. I have worked for both multinationals and indigenous firms alike. I have been on benefits for the last four years. My wife works part-time and brings home c €250/wk. (c €13,000 p/a). I am getting the jobseekers allowance for me €173/week and FIS (family income supplement) of €168/week.

I have three teenage kids who have medical cards and we get a bin waiver of around €200/year. One of my daughters is at university and she gets her fees (and registration) paid and has a maintenance grant of some €2,500/yr. Without this, we could not have afforded to send her to university.

My younger son hopes to attend university. I will also claim the grant and same maintenance support for him.

Regarding my mortgage, I have an arrangement with my bank to pay €100/wk off my mortgage until my financial situation improves. At an interest rate of 4.4pc, those payments just about cover the interest and reduce my remaining mortage balance of €89,000 by about €1,200/year.

Now here is the rub – if I were to return to work or take any paying placement job, the family would lose all the university support, all our medical cards, the bin charge waiver, the dole and the FIS. I’ve provided this box calculating what I would lose.

Then of course the bank would demand full monthly payments on the mortgage of about €1,400/month or about €16,800 a year.

So David, I calculate that the cost of returning to work is €45,552 and this is the cash value. In order to earn this amount of disposable income, I would require a salary of between €68,000 – €69,000 and subtract my wife’s €13,000 P/A.

I want to work and I want a job but why would I take a job that ends up with me having less income than I have now and not being able to provide for my family?

The minimum wage is roughly equal to my jobseekers allowance & FIS and I’d prefer to work, but the loss of benefits (third-level grants and medical cards) is the killer.

The system doesn’t work!

We are stuck in a rut with no way out, bar the black economy. There are ways around this impasse, but why should I have to revert to subterfuge, the black market and deceit instead of the Government getting its act together and sorting this mess out?

Yours

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Do tego podsumowanie:

If we choose to carry on as things are, why should he try for a job unless it pays him extremely well? And – another way of looking at things – why would an employer pay these high wages if what is driving up the wages isn’t potential employer productivity but the necessary cushion needed above benefits to make the job attractive?

We can put our heads in the sand because the answers are too awkward but that’s hardly a strategy.

Zrodlo:

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2014/02/27/if-a-persons-better-off-on-the-dole-than-at-work-we-have-a-problem

#europa #ciekawostki #ekonomia #emigracja