Government proposes to link amount of Jobseekers Benefit to previous salary

NoRegretsCoyote said:
Working-age income-based benefit schemes are very expensive to administer as there is so much risk of fraud and error. You need a lot of people checking previous payslips and the like.

Flat-rate schemes have their merits. The PUP was not well targetted but it was implemented extremely quickly and kept a lot of people solvent at a difficult time.
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Are they really that hard though? Our European counterparts seems to be able to operate it. I see the previous / last payment history as being the easier part of the work in this age of digital data. Revenue Comissioners are already connected to Businesses via their Business registration number & Welfare are already connected to Revenue Comissioners.

The harder part would be the design & deployment / enforcement of the "demonstration of active & constructive job seeking" (my words - not taken from any proposals).
  1. Actively seek work. What are the criteria & how does the job seeker prove it?
  2. Secure interviews.
  3. Reject interviews - why?
  4. Sit interviews.
  5. Secure offer.
  6. Reject offer - why?
  7. Accept offer.
  8. Begin work.
  • What are the criteria & how does the job seeker prove it for each of the above?
  • Should the jobseeker pursue jobs that are below his level of expertise or historical pay grade? If, yes after what period of jobseeking?
  • Should the jobseeker pursue jobs that are unreasonably distant / overseas from his home? If, yes after what period of jobseeking? How far is unreasonably distant?
  • Should the jobseeker accept a lowball offer? What is a lowball offer?
  • & so on - there are an infinite number of "What if" scenarios to be gamed out although I assume we could look over the shoulders of our European counterparts for a hint or two. Why reinvent the wheel.
 
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Horatio said:
The harder part would be the design & deployment / enforcement of the "demonstration of active & constructive job seeking" (my words - not taken from any proposals).
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This is already the case for JA if you roll over onto it after nine months on JB. They do test your jobseeking efforts.

Horatio said:
Our European counterparts seems to be able to operate it.
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Indeed - but there is a lot more manpower involved in the control framework. Defining "last income before unemployment" is very tricky for people with casual employment and/or multiple jobs. You need to have a reference period too - should it be averaged over one, three or six months for example? There have to be ceilings for high earners as well. Checking all of this takes up a lot of resources.

I am not saying income-linked benefits is a bad thing, but it will have its costs.
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
This is already the case for JA if you roll over onto it after nine months on JB. They do test your jobseeking efforts.
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Oh, I didn't know. Out of curiousity I'd like to understand how that protocol looks & how it works in practice - I might take a look into that...

NoRegretsCoyote said:
Indeed - but there is a lot more manpower involved in the control framework. Defining "last income before unemployment" is very tricky for people with casual employment and/or multiple jobs. You need to have a reference period too - should it be averaged over one, three or six months for example? There have to be ceilings for high earners as well. Checking all of this takes up a lot of resources.

I am not saying income-linked benefits is a bad thing, but it will have its costs.
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Understood - it's not very easy or cheap but I see that as being the price to be paid for a fairer system. I too am in favor of it in principle.
My concern is that the cost to administer it would be out of all proportion vs. the value/fairness derived from it's implementation. Administrative bloat leading to inefficency.

Oh me of little faith!
 
Horatio said:
My concern is that the cost to administer it would be out of all proportion vs. the value/fairness derived from it's implementation.
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For sake of argument suppose someone on a high income would receive €100 more a week under an income-linked system.

If the average spell of JB claims is only six weeks then from a government perspective there is a lot of expense in putting in place a control environment that doesn't lead to a huge improvement in the typical person's circumstances.

Until we see details of proposals it's all speculation though.
 
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So it reads to me like the framework / ruleset is already in place & can be immediately applied if / when this proposal is realised.
As mentioned by @NoRegretsCoyote the last payment calculation then becomes the new variable to be figured out - not insurmountable but not easy either in a subset of cases.
 
PGF2016 said:
What would the justification for 3 years be? Is one year not more than enough time to find a new position?

I don't think we want to discourage people from taking up a new position because they have it good on welfare. (Note: I'm not saying that everyone has it good on welfare).
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Take the example of Architects, during the last recession - many had no work in their industry for 3-4 years. With specialist skills, few had the ability to get another job, particularly one paying anything close to their former profession, while many had significant financial obligations.

In some cases, people who were significant tax payers, may need to go back and retain for a new career, that can take a few years.
 
MrEarl said:
In some cases, people who were significant tax payers, may need to go back and retain for a new career, that can take a few years.
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If you are retraining (and not available for work) you wouldn't be on an unemployment support anyway though?

I think 50% of salary for the 9 months of JSB (up to a cap of say an annual salary of max 100k) is a no-brainer to be honest - unemployment gaps are likely to be short enough in these situations I would have thought
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
Defining "last income before unemployment" is very tricky for people with casual employment and/or multiple jobs.
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Everyone makes a tax return. Base it on that if there aren't pay slips etc.

gravitygirl said:
I think 50% of salary for the 9 months of JSB (up to a cap of say an annual salary of max 100k) is a no-brainer to be honest - unemployment gaps are likely to be short enough in these situations I would have thought
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Why have a cap at all? There's no cap on PRSI payments.

Cavanbhoy said:
These Criteria are already widely abused as it is with very little follow up.
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Yes, there are staffing, structure and competence issues within the Department of Social Welfare (or whatever its new Orwellian name is).
 
Purple said:
Why have a cap at all? There's no cap on PRSI payments.


Ideally sure - but I am sure there is a fear about the financial cost in a downturn - at least a cap would give some sense of control. It would also big a massive improvement on the current situation
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gipimann said:
Civil and public servants recruited since April 1995 pay full rate PRSI, same as private sector employees.
Those recruited before April 1995 pay a lower rate,but have little or no PRSI entitlements, so won't be impacting the Social Insurance Fund.
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Exactly
 
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