The latest CSO figures showing a decrease in the cost of living have prompted employer groups to renew calls for a decrease in the minimum wage. However, on closer examination, the CPI reveals several increased costs which, combined with welfare cuts, push many people further into poverty.
The cost of living has decreased by 3.9% from [...]

Yesterday evening I was on Matt Cooper’s The Last Word (5:00 segment) with a representative from IBEC discussing wage levels. I quoted the numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eurostat and Destatis (German Statistical Board) to show that Irish labour costs are not high; indeed, they’re rather low by comparison with our EU [...]

I think - but would be happy to be corrected - that one of the weaknesses with the Left is a shortage of ambitious and feasible policy ideas to change a key source of inequality in Western economies: the scale of the inequality in the income that those who are in employment receive for their [...]

Imagine you’re walking a high-wire. You’re nearly at the end of line. You’re doing everything possible not to fall - balancing with your arms, moving snail-like, praying; the last thing you need is for some messer to start shaking the wire. That’s exactly what the Government is preparing to do as it mulls over its [...]

In a previous post on Progressive-Economy.ie, where I disputed the economic benefits of cutting wages, Professor Alan Mathews and Pavement Trauma questioned aspects of my analysis, raising important issues which deserve a considered response. For this goes beyond ‘what wage levels are best’; it is about defining what the critical issues behind our competitiveness and [...]

Stop the Presses!
‘Irish workers earn 4th highest wages in the world!’  ‘Irish workers one of the best paid in the world!’ ‘Wages for Dubliners are among the highest in the world!’
So, all that guff from trade unions and progressives and (and as we will see - just about every official data collection agency) is just [...]

Maybe it’s the Leveller in me, but when times are hard we should all put our shoulder to the wheel, share out the pain and protect the lesser able in our community. Listening to the great debate over wages you’d think that everyone was a Leveller. There is so much ‘share the pain’ going around [...]

Yesterday evening, Karl Whelan of Irish Economy entered the wages and competitiveness discussion which stemmed from Philip Lane’s post written as a reaction to David Begg’s op-ed column in the Irish Times yesterday. Whelan provided his usual thorough, nuanced analysis which reads like a mainstream economic cheat-sheet on every aspect of the issue for the [...]

There are strong structural differences in employment between the public and private sector - a fact that is recognised by some, and ignored by others.
The structural differences relate to the types of occupation, education standards, and length of service - all of which affect wage levels. The length of service of those in the public [...]

Over at Dublin Opinion, Conor McCabe is continuing his excellent analysis of contemporary class relations, this time using the CSO’s new National Employment Survey for 2007. He challenges the sloppy thinking that suggests we have a ‘middle-class’ majority, concluding that nearly two-thirds work in what can be properly called ‘working class’ occupations:
‘From the viewpoint of wages, [...]