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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
August/September VILLAGE
receipt of Family Income Supplement (FIS)
increased by almost % to , fam-
ilies, supporting over , children.
Other less quantifiable implications, linked
to precarious work and income uncertainty,
add further to the impact of low pay on
society.
The second issue reflects a
growing appreciation of the
need for society to consider
low wage rates not just in rela-
tion to competitiveness and
competition but also in rela-
tion to income adequacy and
living standards. While having
low wage rates is often cham-
pioned as a competitiveness goal; there is a
corollary question of how low should wages
be to allow an ethical society. The living
wage is about providing a robust evidence-
based figure to answer that question.
It is hard to argue with a view that an indi-
vidual working full-time should be able to
earn enough income to enjoy a decent stand-
ard of living.
The implementation of a living wage
is likely to be a gradual process. In some
A
LIVING wage is an income floor that
allows employees working full-time
to afford the essentials of life. The
figure identified for is €. per
hour. This is equivalent to € per week.
The Living Wage Technical Group,
instigated by SIPTU, Tasc, and the Nevin
Institute among others, has worked since
early to establish a transparent,
robust and sustainable way of determining
the figure at which the living wage should
be set. In July the Group launched the ‘
Living Wage’, a technical paper with a meth-
odology that will allow an annual update of
the figure. The calculation is based on min-
imum living standard budgets developed
by the Vincentian Partnership for Social
Justice that reflect the cost of living for a
single adult working full-time. Employees
with earnings below the living wage are
forced to do without certain essentials so
they can make ends meet. Above the living
wage threshold, employees earn discretion-
ary income to afford living standards and
items beyond those deemed essential.
There are two key issues that furnish the
context for the emergence of an Irish Living
Wage Movement.
First, we have a low-pay problem. This
sits at the heart of our skewed direct (earn-
ings) income-distribution and demands
significant state intervention to redistrib-
ute resources to counteract the resultant
inequality. The latest CSO poverty fig-
ures indicate that, of all those in poverty,
.% are at work, These (the working
poor) amount to about , workers. The
latest income-distribution data, for ,
show that the pre-distribution of income is
such that the top % receive more than
% of all earned income and the top %
receive more than %. Overall, the top
% receive times the share of the bot-
tom %. Eurostat () classified .%
of workers in Ireland as “low-paid”, that is
earning less than two-thirds of national
median hourly earnings.
Unsurprisingly, the latest Department of
Social Protection annual report shows that
in , the number of working families in
sectors, where there are only small num-
bers of employees below the threshold (eg
the finance sector), increases should be pos-
sible, the international research shows, with
little or no impact for companies. There
are greater challenges in labour-intensive,
low-pay sectors (eg the retail and hospi-
tality sectors) where a phased approach
to achieving a living wage is more feasible.
Local authorities should take a leadership
role and ensure their employees and con-
tracted workers are all paid at least the
living wage.
Elsewhere the perspective on a living
wage must evolve from ‘impossible’ to ‘soci-
etally imperative’. That transition and its
acceptance by employers, workers and soci-
ety in general can take time.
The advance of the Irish Living Wage
Movement will hopefully ignite interest in
issues of low-pay, income adequacy, precar-
ious work patterns, and social inclusion in
general. The next update is due in July .
With a review of the minimum wage a major
part of Labour’s package for post-reshuffle
government the issue has never been more
topical. •
Time to address inequality and inadequacy, in wages. By Dr Micheál Collins
... or at least give a ‘living wage’
to those who work
LIVING WAGE POLITICS
Dr Micheál Collins is
Senior Research Office
at the NERI and is a
member of the Living
Wage Technical Group.
Details and documents
on the Irish Living Wage
are available at www.
livingwage.ie
