Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:1183. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Social Protection the estimated full year cost of moving all social welfare claimants including pensioners to a living wage. [41255/21]
View answerTuesday, 27 July 2021
Questions (1183)
Written answers
The Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL) is an assessment, developed by the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice, of the minimum income needed to live and partake in the social and economic norms of everyday life for various household types. My Department has partly funded the excellent, detailed work of the Vincentian Partnership for a number of years, and I find it extremely useful. One of the benefits of the work of the Vincentians is that it produces data on various household types, including the different costs that arise for households in rural and urban locations. In that way, it complements data produced from other analyses such as the Survey on Income and Living Conditions produced by the Central Statistics Office.The work of the Vincentians also highlights issues that may be addressed with improvements in services. In this regard, improved services, such as the extension of GP visit cards for children and the affordable childcare scheme can result in significant reductions in the minimum income standards needed by households.
Bringing weekly working age social welfare rates in line with the MESL would entail increasing the maximum personal rate to €252 and the Qualified Child Increase to €48.40 for children under 12 and €95.10 for children aged 12 and over. There would be no proportionate increase in the current rate for Qualified Adults in order to meet the MESL.
Bringing pension rates in line with the MESL would require an increase of up to €57.70 for pensioners living alone in rural areas. There would be no increase to the rate of payment for pensioner couples, or pensioners living alone in urban areas. While it is not possible at this time to provide an estimate for those living in rural areas only, the estimated cost of an increase for all pensioners in receipt of the Living Alone Allowance is included in the figure below.
The estimated cost of bringing working age and pension welfare payments up to the Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL), as outlined above, is €2.9 billion . This costing is subject to change in the context of emerging trends and associated revision of the estimated numbers of recipients.
The examination of the living wage, referred to by the Deputy and which will impact workers as opposed to social welfare recipients, is being undertaken by the Low Pay Commission.
The Commission's work, which is ongoing, will examine the design of a living wage in an Irish context, taking account of the policy, social and economic implications of a move to a living wage.