Should Jobseekers Benefit and Allowance be reformed?

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Our unemployment benefit lasts 15 months in Ireland (UB), and unemployment assistance (UA) lasts forever, in theory.

In many other countries, benefit runs out after 6 months (UK, USA), or maybe 9 months.

Many other countries don't have unemployment assistance (USA), or else it's contingent on training or re-training, etc.

In light of our strong labour market, 15 months seems a long time? What about cutting UB to 6 months, or maybe more only if in education/training?

What about moving to the Danish model, where UB rates are higher (e.g. 50-60% of average wages), but where the duration is shorter, and it's stricter?

Or what about abolishing UA altogether?
 
This is a controversial idea. Why not give UA to everyone as a non means tested basic allowance everyone is entitled to? Then whatever work they do after that is their own choice and their income taxed accordingly. In such a case noone would ever be stuck in a trap where it made sense for them to work in the black economy and benefit fraud would be eliminated alongside the whole apparatus and circus of bureacracy involved.
 
With virtually full employment is there a pressing need to do it at the moment? You can be sure the various unions would grind the country to a halt over this.
 
sign said:
Why not give UA to everyone as a non means tested basic allowance everyone is entitled to?
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I believe this is done in some countries. One of the points for changing to our current 'Tax Credit' system was to allow this, with very few changes.

It works by giving each (employable) person a Tax Credit of say €150 Per Week, which they would be credited against their tax, worked or not. The tax bands Lower, Std and Higher! COPs would just need to be adjusted to keep the overall tax take the same.

So..
Not working : Get 150 for dole office.
Working, Part Time, etc: Get Pay + (150 - Tax on Pay) from employer.

Towger
 
In my opinion, the whole idea of Jobseeker's Benefits/Allowances (note the subtle change byt eh government on the names of unemployment payments...puts a more positive spin on it wihtout actually doing anything to get people back into work) is window dressing. This is a welfare state. Even if you don't qualify for JB/JA you will not be allowed to starve. Supplementary Welfare Allowance, the equilalent of the JB/JA rate, is paid to anybody who is in dire straits. Most genuine umemployed people in this age, use JB/JA as a short-time payment, 50% finding work within 3 months of signing on.

6 months entitlement to JB/JA sounds good to me. If you are still unemployed beyond that period, you should be in training , re-training or whatever.

Too many people end up relying on a so-called Jobseeker's payment when in fact they are unemployable after years of being left to their own devices. Many have addiction problems and the state has given up on them, happy to leave them on a long-term payment, unsuited to their situations with no help other than to ask them every month "are you looking for work and any work since you last signed?"
 
shanegl said:
With virtually full employment is there a pressing need to do it at the moment? You can be sure the various unions would grind the country to a halt over this.
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Surely this is the best time to attempt reform? It would be a brave politician who would attempt reform during a period of high unemployment.

Given the massive (and ineffective) waste of resources spent trying to ascertain whether people are genuinely seeking work or not - and all the inherent problems in defining that - I think the tax credit idea has real merit.

I seem to remember hearing such a system was implemented in Australia.
 
Can I point out that jobs are not that easy to come by. y partner lost his job 4 months ago and it has taken him this length to get another. We live in a large town but his area would be retail management.
I work full time but his wage made up about 2/3 of our income. He did get UB but had to prove he was actively seeking work. They wouldn't give him anything towards our mortgage as I was working. We almost lost our house and are now very much in the red.
I do think something needs to be changed. For one signing on once a month is absurd. So easy for people to work on the side. Hubby worked since he left school and has paid taxes in the higher bracket for that length of time. One look at his record should have shown he was a genuine case. There are some poeple who have been on UB for a significant length of time and should be made to do FAS training etc.

Anyway, my point is that I think 12 months is about right. It can take that long to find another job especially if you live in a rural area.
 
ailbhe said:
I do think something needs to be changed. For one signing on once a month is absurd. So easy for people to work on the side.
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People will defraud the system whether they have to sign on or not. Its only a few years when people had to sign on every week! Signing on is not a control measure any more, its a way of keeping people actively aware of their requirement to actually look for work. If you are claimiing sickness, you have to visit a doctor every week to get a cert, same thing with unemployment, prove you're still unemployed by signing on.

ailbhe said:
Hubby worked since he left school and has paid taxes in the higher bracket for that length of time. One look at his record should have shown he was a genuine case.
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Don't see why this is relevant. Did he not get paid his benefit? Taxes (Revenue) are not linked to Social Welfare.

I agree, 12 months on JB should be about right, but the state must be in a position to offer training/retraining in that period to anybody who, like uyopur hubby, can't get work in his field. They can't do that at present so they dodge that fact by paying welfare forever and ever.
 
Funny how everyone bar one rejects the Danish model and plumps for the pittance model.
 
ailbhe said:
Can I point out that jobs are not that easy to come by. y partner lost his job 4 months ago and it has taken him this length to get another. We live in a large town but his area would be retail management.
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Maybe jobs are hard to get if the applicant is not willing to be flexible on what work s/he will take?
He did get UB but had to prove he was actively seeking work.
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Fair enough surely?
For one signing on once a month is absurd.
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You mean it's too infrequent or too frequent? Do you have to sign on in person once a month? I was on UB for about 6 months a few years back and I don't remember having to attend the SW office over that period.
Hubby worked since he left school and has paid taxes in the higher bracket for that length of time. One look at his record should have shown he was a genuine case.
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But surely double checking is no harm?
There are some poeple who have been on UB for a significant length of time and should be made to do FAS training etc.
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I thought that they were after a certain period of months? I know that I was contacted and told to attend for FAS or related interviews just before I got a new job during my period of unemployment.
 
ClubMan said:
You mean it's too infrequent or too frequent? Do you have to sign on in person once a month? I was on UB for about 6 months a few years back and I don't remember having to attend the SW office over that period.
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If you live more than 10k from the local office, you only have to sign once every three months. before this came in, you signed at the local garda station.

Every person signing for three months is automatically referred to FAS for assessment for training under the employmant action programme. Where this falls down is that FAS do not have enough variety of training to offer. Unless, in my experience, you are into computer course or hairdressing, you will not get offered anything! This is where the problem lies and this is why people end up unemployable after years on the "dole".

As a matter of interest though, 60% of people find work within 3 months of signing on, accordingly to SW stats.
 
Welfarite said:
If you live more than 10k from the local office, you only have to sign once every three months. before this came in, you signed at the local garda station.
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I live about 1KM from the local SW office and don't remember having to sign on in person each month c. 2001/2.
Every person signing for three months is automatically referred to FAS for assessment for training under the employmant action programme.
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I think this is new because I was only referred after 6 months.
 
Yes the 3 month rule came in in November 06. This system only works if you have good communication between Fás and the Local Office. I think they shoud be amalgamated. I also think that Assistance should not be as high as benefit and Assistance should be limited also.
 
But it's back to the same old story....Ireland is a welfare state. Even if we abolished JA, people would claim SWA (JA without the criteria other than bieng broke). Beggars on the street and all that. I agree, Tomred1, FAS and SW should be amalgamated.
 
Reprinted for those for whom scrolling to the top of the page is too arduous:

What about moving to the Danish model, where UB rates are higher (e.g. 50-60% of average wages), but where the duration is shorter, and it's stricter?
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I find it interesting that everyone bar me has ignored this blatantly obvious and vastly superior way of handling unemployment benefits.
 
Ther may be something rotten in the state of Denmark, though....things are not as simple as in that post. This quote from a description of Scandanavian model, whcih Denmark uses:

"However, the welfare state has never been an unchallenged system, either in Scandinavia or elsewhere, and in recent years the crisis in the welfare state has been high on the political agenda both in the Scandinavian countries and elsewhere. The crisis consist many individual elements and is partly due to the fact that the present welfare arrangements originated and developed in the 1960s and 1970s at a time of high economic growth and low unemployment. It has never been the intention either with unemployment, sickness benefits or with cash benefits that so many people should receive them or that they should receive them for so long as has been the case in recent years. The financing of the welfare state has thus become a problem, and as it has not been politically possible to increase taxes, which are already very high, the Scandinavian countries have accrued a very large national debt which on the long view could represent a threat to the welfare systems."
 
rock3r said:
I find it interesting that everyone bar me has ignored this blatantly obvious and vastly superior way of handling unemployment benefits.
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Benefits are already too high, it's a stretch to say making them even higher is "vastly superior" no matter how strict or short a duration you would intend them to be.
 
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