The Action Plan for Jobless Households is an example of one of the many measures that Government is implementing with a view to assisting people and families to become work ready and gain employment. Adults in jobless households are not all unemployed; they include people who are not seeking work for reasons such as disability or caring responsibilities. The plan therefore sets out to extend activation services to people who are not working but are not defined as unemployed by traditional measures. It focuses in particular on improving employment rates of households with children – both the traditional ‘nuclear’ family and the lone parent family. A number of key policy actions to achieve that goal are currently underway, most notably:
1. Extending active engagement with the Intreo employment service to additional groups of economically inactive working age adults who could, with appropriate supports, take up employment. In this regard, the process of increasing Intreo engagement with lone parents and with people with disabilities has been continuing since the publication of the Plan.
2. Progressing plans to pilot a new family focused case management approach in five geographical areas (Limerick, Waterford, Cork, Dundalk and Tallaght) to improve employment rates and reduce joblessness in households across Ireland. These pilots are being prepared and will commence in the first half of this year.
3. Improving the earnings of people with families when they transition from welfare to employment. There are a number of social protection measures arising from Budget 2018 that strengthen this commitment:
- The National Minimum Wage has increased to €9.55 per hour from January 2018. This is an increase of 30 cent an hour and reflects this Government’s commitment to make work pay. This increase will directly benefit approximately 155,000 people and their families.
- The Qualified Child payment, which is paid to families with children, will increase from €29.80 to €31.80 for each child. This is the first increase to this payment in over seven years and will benefit over 400,000 children.
- The Working Family Payment (formerly Family Income Supplement) thresholds increased by €10 per week for families of 1, 2 or 3 children. This scheme particularly benefits low-income working families and my Department will carry out a promotion and information campaign in the coming months to encourage families to see if they are eligible for this payment.
- The Back to Work Family Dividend, a payment for families with children who sign off their welfare payments and enter employment, was due to close to new entrants in March 2018. I am keeping this scheme open, as it helps families make the transition from welfare to work. Currently, over 8,000 families with 16,500 dependent children benefit from this payment.
- The income disregard for Jobseekers’ Transition recipients and lone parents returning to work increased by €20 to €130 per week. This will benefit lone parents earning more than €110 per week and is in addition to the €5 increase in the weekly rate of payment and €2 increase in the qualified child payment.
- In terms of services for children, funding has been increased for the School Meals programme to include the newly-designated DEIS schools.
- Finally, with regard to supports for families with children, I can confirm that we have retained funding to ensure that the increase of 25% to the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance announced in 2017 will be continued this year.
In order to drive action on household joblessness, progress against each of the reform actions and milestones will be monitored and reported on quarterly to the Cabinet Committee on the Economy and Jobs. The plan also sets two new headline targets for 2020:
- Reducing the proportion of households that are jobless to 13% or less (from 18% in 2015), and
- Reducing the share of the 18-59 population resident in such households to less than 8% (from 12 & in 2015). Performance against these targets will be published on an annual basis.
Implementation of the above policy measures should see the level of joblessness fall more rapidly than is already anticipated over the next few years. These targets are in addition to the existing Pathways to Work targets 2020 – bringing unemployment down to between 5% and 6%, bringing long-term unemployment below 2.5%, and bringing youth unemployment below 12%.
The Action Plan for Jobless Households is about employment activation and removing barriers that are currently preventing people from getting a fair chance, and for some a second chance, which is at the core of building a Republic of Opportunity for all.
