Let them eat of the cake of despair
Feb. 24th, 2012 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbThe unemployment rate in this country is at approximately 14.2%. Latest estimates indicate that it will remain roughly stable at that level, with perhaps a .5% drop partly attributable to emmigration, through to the end of 2014. ESRI. Meanwhile, the tax burden on the ironically-named "coping classes" has increased significantly over the last couple of years, and will increase still more. Money quote:
(Independent, 12 Feb 2012.)
I'm terrified, guys. I am not supposed to be this afraid about the future, to the point where I'm lying awake at night, thinking how the fuck do I make it next year if there's no funding?
Or what if I make it all the way. Become Me, PhD. And no one will hire me. And I have no money, because I have had no funding, and no work experience, because I have been doing research.
Fun fact. If you are unemployed, the government thinks you should work a 40-hr week for 238 euro, on the so-called "National Internship Scheme." Which is about 6 euro per hour. The minimum wage is 7.20 euro.
Go here and look at the listing of "internships." Now tell me. How much "internship" training do you think a salesperson, bookkeeper, or IT support person will receive? Tell me that most of them aren't real jobs, which would be better filled by real hires at a living wage. Tell me that making these positions into government-supported "internships" is better for the country than having six- or nine-month contract employees.
Go on. I dare you. Tell me.
A monthly rail ticket costs in the region of a hundred quid. That's twenty-five quid a week. Our two-person household doesn't eat extravagantly, but we can't seem to keep our food and sundries shopping much under a hundred quid. (And shopping for two is not that much more expensive, on the whole, than shopping for one.) Now add in lighting, heating, telephony. The occasional purchase of work-appropriate clothes or shoes.
I say this for the purposes of information. But the difference between 238 euro per week (NIS) and 288 euro per week (minumum wage) is rather large, in perspective. Fifty euro is a fortune if you don't have it.
You can live with dignity on minimum wage if you're not responsible for anyone other than yourself. If you can share a bedsit rental, you might even be able to save - but most people in Ireland, even most unemployed people, have responsibilities and families. Debts taken on while they were in employment and had every expectation of remaining employed.
So this?
This is not fucking good enough, dear government. Fail better, assholes.
"The biggest burden has fallen on those earning €17,542 to €20,000, who have collectively paid three times more tax in 2011 than they did in 2010 -- or a shocking 215 per cent increase.
Those earning €20,001 to €30,000 are paying 36 per cent more tax than they did in 2010 and those earning between €40,001 and €50,000 are paying 23 per cent more...
...the 118 people in the country who earn more than €2m paid 0.3 per cent less in tax in 2011 than they did in 2010; the 1,148 who earned between €400,001 and €450,000 paid just 1.1 per cent more in tax.
"If you look at the group earning between €17,543 and €20,000, the tax take tripled for that group between 2010 and 2011. But for those earning between €100,000 and €125,000, the tax take only marginally increased," [Dowds] said.
(Independent, 12 Feb 2012.)
I'm terrified, guys. I am not supposed to be this afraid about the future, to the point where I'm lying awake at night, thinking how the fuck do I make it next year if there's no funding?
Or what if I make it all the way. Become Me, PhD. And no one will hire me. And I have no money, because I have had no funding, and no work experience, because I have been doing research.
Fun fact. If you are unemployed, the government thinks you should work a 40-hr week for 238 euro, on the so-called "National Internship Scheme." Which is about 6 euro per hour. The minimum wage is 7.20 euro.
Go here and look at the listing of "internships." Now tell me. How much "internship" training do you think a salesperson, bookkeeper, or IT support person will receive? Tell me that most of them aren't real jobs, which would be better filled by real hires at a living wage. Tell me that making these positions into government-supported "internships" is better for the country than having six- or nine-month contract employees.
Go on. I dare you. Tell me.
A monthly rail ticket costs in the region of a hundred quid. That's twenty-five quid a week. Our two-person household doesn't eat extravagantly, but we can't seem to keep our food and sundries shopping much under a hundred quid. (And shopping for two is not that much more expensive, on the whole, than shopping for one.) Now add in lighting, heating, telephony. The occasional purchase of work-appropriate clothes or shoes.
I say this for the purposes of information. But the difference between 238 euro per week (NIS) and 288 euro per week (minumum wage) is rather large, in perspective. Fifty euro is a fortune if you don't have it.
You can live with dignity on minimum wage if you're not responsible for anyone other than yourself. If you can share a bedsit rental, you might even be able to save - but most people in Ireland, even most unemployed people, have responsibilities and families. Debts taken on while they were in employment and had every expectation of remaining employed.
So this?
This is not fucking good enough, dear government. Fail better, assholes.
