A new report is warning that the public will be worse off as a result of Budget 2019 – with lower income households hit hardest.
The ESRI report says Irish households will see an average 0.7% reduction in income as a result the budget.
It said lower income households will face a 0.8% reduction while higher income households will see a 0.8% reduction.
ESRI research officer Barra Roantree said there are a number of reasons for the difference.
“Lower income households received a slightly larger proportion of losses - that’s 0.8% rather than 0.7% - and that is because of the decision to freeze personal employee tax credits in cash terms and increase benefit payments by less than wage growth,” he said.
“Higher income households will see slightly smaller proportional losses - about 0.5% - and that is because they benefit from cuts to the Universal Social Charge and also an increase to the point at which you start to pay the higher rate of income tax.”
