Responding to the Jobs Crisis: Brian Nolan on Social Welfare, Employment and Unemployment

Brian Nolan addresses interactions between the benefits system and unemployment in the fourth part of the Irish Times Jobs Crisis series (article here).   Among the topics: unemployment traps due to high overall replacement rates; the relative importance of labour demand and supply factors in the rise in unemployment; the (limited) need to adjust social welfare benefits in line with changes in other incomes; and the importance of providing meaningful work opportunties as part of soical employment/benefit conditionality schemes.