We look at how the pay-squeeze is affecting two typical Irish workers
Teacher
Net pay 4.8%
LAOISE O’BOYLE is a teacher in a Dublin non-fee paying secondary school and a lone parent of a six-year- old son. She owns an affordable house in Dublin.
Despite a 5 per cent increment on her wages in the last year, her take-home pay is down by almost 5 per cent due to increases in pension and income levies.
Cutting childcare has been the biggest step she has had to take due to her declining income. Childcare cost her €500 a month and when the second cuts came in April, it pushed things “over the edge” and she could no longer afford it.
She is relying on family, friends and other mothers to pick her son up during the week, which is not ideal for the boy.
Other changes she has made in her budget include being more prudent in her grocery shopping, buying only absolute essentials and cutting her social life down to one night a month.
She has seen small reductions in mortgage rates and electricity.
She feels she has no financial cushion and the reality of the cuts was worse than expected, so she says she is now living from week to week.
Laoise says she won’t necessarily get some windfall when she does turn 65 and feels there is a lot of misunderstanding about the public pension.
For the future, she is concerned about both her contract and what may come with the next budget and says she can no longer plan for the future.
Gross Aug 08 €3,592
Net Aug 08 €2,807
Gross Aug 09 €3,779
Net Aug 09 €2,672
Net drop 4.8%
Cleaner
Net pay 8.5%
ELLEN MARTIN works as a cleaner with the Civil Service. She has three children aged 10, 11 and 15.
She is the only earner in her household as her husband has been let go from his job in the construction industry.
Ellen’s gross pay has stayed the same but she has lost 8.5 per cent due to the pension and income levies. Since the budget last year. she has lost that “few extra bob” and is finding it more of a struggle to make ends meet.
Ellen is making cuts in many areas of her life, including having no holiday, cutting the weekly Sunday family excursions, nights out and her children’s hobbies like taekwon-do classes and Sky television channels.
She is also saving money by not giving her children money if they go for a walk, restricting the lengths of showers in her household, doing her grocery shopping in different supermarkets.
Ellen is worried about how she will cope with taxes and cuts which may be coming down the line. While she sometimes wonders would she be better off not working, it’s not something she would do.
“You never expect to live off the Government,” she said. “I am a working person and will always be a working person.”
Gross pay Sept 08.€1,807