Declan Jordan: Covid Crisis Shows Need for Basic Income Scheme
Rory O’Farrell: Time To Raise Taxes Not Cut Them
Laura Bambrick: The State of Sick Pay in Ireland is Sickening
Ciarán Nugent: Irish income figures exclude key sources of income for top earners and overstate the income of many low-wage workers
One reply on “Some Recent Pieces on Taxes, Incomes and Social Protection”
Declan Jordan’s piece is very interesting (I’m afraid I tend to discount the effusions from the left as they are presented in a frame of reference that either ignores, or relies on implicit, but unsound, assumptions about, the disposition of political and economic power).
The Finns recently completed their pilot study:
https://www.kela.fi/web/en/news-archive/-/asset_publisher/lN08GY2nIrZo/content/results-of-the-basic-income-experiment-small-employment-effects-better-perceived-economic-security-and-mental-wellbeing
They limited it to 2,000 unemployed people.
I’m idir dhá chomhairle on this one. I acknowledge all the potential benefits Declan outlines, but I would worry about its application here given the dysfunction in the microeconomy. In addition, it would probably need fairly water-tight definitions of residency and enforcement.
I also suspect it would be gamed to the hilt by employers.
But a pilot scheme is certainly required – though probably for all citizens and residents in a clearly defined area.