Wednesday 25 February 2009

Pay Cuts

Could all commentators calling for reductions in social welfare payments and / or pay-cuts for the working poor lead the way by voluntarily reducing their salary to about €200 per week and not touch savings for a year. Now who is first?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could all commentators suggesting that the public finances can be put in order without any reductions in social welfare payments or pay-cuts for the working poor lead the way by donating year 7% of their salary to a public servant impacted by the pension levy. Now who is first?

Note: "Working poor" is hereby defined as anyone who earns less than any arbitrary threshold between €100k and €25k.

Anonymous said...

Interesting idea - and one that ties in with a new year's resolution of a lot of my peer group: Live off an amount equal to the dole payment, as much as possible, and see where your lifestyle is breaking that budget.

Can I prod this line of thought a little more, though. If the cost of living collapsed 50% (this is as you can see a hypothetical exercise), would the contributors/readers on this site leave welfare payments at their current levels?

Or if I put that another way, what is the deflation threshold beyond which you would cut welfare payments, given the current state of public finances?