The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, T.D. - has announced a nationwide information campaign aimed at raising awareness of the Government’s Working Family Payment scheme and to alert employees that they may qualify for this scheme while they are working.Minister Doherty today emphasised:

“The Working Family Payment is one of my Department’s schemes to provide support for employees with families who have low earnings.  Currently, over 53,000 working families with 120,000 children are benefitting from the scheme and receiving average weekly payments of €135.

“I want everybody who is entitled to such supports to be aware of what is available and this new information campaign seeks to promote greater awareness.  If anybody out there thinks that they and their family might qualify, I would urge them to contact their local Intreo Centre or simply check out the details of the scheme on our website www.welfare.ie .”

Image: The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, T.D

The estimated expenditure on the Working Family Payment in 2018 was €410.5 million and the allocation for 2019 is €416.44 million. One of the measures that Minister Doherty secured in Budget 2019 was the introduction of a housing cost disregard for customers in receipt of maintenance payments. This brings Working Family Payment into line with other social assistance schemes. 

Arising from this Budget measure, approximately €9.1 million extra will be paid out annually, with affected customers benefiting by an average increase of €27.40 per week in their payment. Recent analysis undertaken by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection showed that existing in-work supports, in particular, the Working Family Payment and the Back to Work Family Dividend, are very effective, and work well in assisting individuals to make the transition from unemployment into employment.

The information campaign will run from today until the end of July on national and local media including print, radio, digital and Out of House including on the Luas and Dart and in train stations.  The cost of the campaign is €120,000 (inc. VAT).

ABC Note: Working Family Payment (WFP) (formerly known as Family Income Supplement (FIS)) is a weekly tax-free payment available to employees with children. It gives extra financial support to people on low pay. You must have at least one child who normally lives with you or is financially supported by you.

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The unemployment rate remained at 3.6% in May – the lowest unemployment rate since 1969 – according to the latest report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This marked the fifteenth month with the unemployment rate at or below 4%.

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Sustain, are running a campaign to raise awareness of the lack of take-up of Healthy Start vouchers.

These vouchers are available for pregnant mums and babies and can be used to buy fruit, vegetables, milk and infant formula.

An estimated £28.6m worth of the vouchers were missed out by low-income families in England and Wales during 2018, often because they just weren’t told about them.

With Healthy Start, you get free vouchers every week to spend on milk, plain fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, and infant formula milk. You can also get free vitamins.

Pregnant or have children under the age of four? You could qualify if you're on benefits, or if you're pregnant and under 18.

ABC Note: Well you know about them now by visting the fabulous ABC website! Click on the image below for more information: 

Image: Healthy Start Vouchers

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The causes of NI’s serious waiting list backlog have been well documented.

Waiting times have been escalating since 2014, as pressures on the health budget meant limited funding was available to suppress waiting time growth.

Significant and sustained investment will be needed to address the backlog.

In addition, longer term transformation reforms will be vital to make sure the problem does not recur.

Transformation is underway and will undoubtedly involve some difficult decisions. Consolidating some hospital services in regional centres of excellence will improve capacity and help the health and social care system keep up with growing demand.

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US total nonfarm payroll employment edged up in May (+75,000), and the unemployment rate remained at 3.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Employment continued to trend up in professional and business services and in health care. Good news for the 'orange one'. 

The current phase of the US recovery says, the Financial Times is allowing the US central bank to watch what happens to workers in a “high-pressure economy”, one with unusually high demand for both products and labour. A high-pressure economy does more than just create jobs. It creates more productive jobs, with better conditions, that attract people who might not have otherwise even been looking. 

Image: US Jobs Growth.

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Up to 116,000 carers will benefit from the Carer’s Support Grant from today.

The annual grant of €1,700 is available to all carers providing full-time care to an older person or a person with a disability, regardless of their means or social insurance contributions.

Some 9,000 carers who are providing care for two or more people will receive a grant in respect of each person being cared for, to take account of the additional costs and challenges of providing care to more than one person.

The Carer’s Support Grant is paid automatically to carers who are receiving Carer’s Allowance (whether full rate or half rate), Carer’s Benefit, or Domiciliary Care Allowance. Other full-time carers who are not receiving any of these payments may also apply for the Carer’s Support Grant.

The grant is paid automatically to approximately 110,000 people receiving the Carer's Allowance, Carer's Benefit, and Domiciliary Care Allowance. It is also available to an estimated 6,000 full-time carers who are not in receipt of these payments.

ABC Note: The Carer's Support Grant is an annual payment made to carers by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP). The scheme name was changed from the Respite Care Grant in 2016 to better reflect how theGrant is used.

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Today the ONS has released an article which looks at rates of persistent poverty for the UK and compares this to other EU countries.

People are defined as being in poverty if they live in a household with an equivalised disposable income that falls below 60% of the national median in the current year. Persistent poverty is defined as being in poverty in the current year and at least two of the three preceding years.

Main Points

• There were roughly 4.7 million people (7.8%) in persistent poverty in the UK in 2017. This is the eighth lowest in the European Union and 3.5 percentage points lower than the EU28 average rate of 11.3%.
• Persistent poverty rates in the UK in 2017 are comparable to levels in 2008. Eurostat reported an estimated increase of 2.6 percentage points for the European Union (EU) over this period to 11.3%.
• Among EU member states, Czechia has the lowest persistent poverty rate, while Romania has the highest - 4.4% and 19.1%. France and Slovenia have similar persistent poverty rates to the UK - 8.0% and 8.2%.
• In contrast to persistent poverty, the UK’s and EU poverty rates rate were similar – 17.0% and 16.9%. respectively. The UK’s poverty rate is similar to Malta (16.7%) and Portugal (18.3%).
• An estimated 2.4m working people were in poverty in 2017, of which 31% also experienced in-work poverty in 2016.
• 44% of those who exited in-work poverty kept the same job and number of hours but increased their hourly pay.
• People who were in persistent poverty were over 4.5 times and 5 times more likely to material deprived and persistently material deprived respectively than the average individual. Severe material deprivation describes the proportion of individuals in the population who are unable to afford four or more items considered by most people to be desirable or even necessary for everyday life.

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Private firms will be given £600 million pounds by the Department for Work and Pensions - to assess disabled people for benefits.

Extending contracts with Atos and Maximus has been widely criticized after enormous numbers of complaints about the way that ‘disability’ is assessed.

Contracts to assess people for a range of benefits have been extended.

They have been extended until July 2021 - and feature Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and Employment and Support Allowance ( ESA ).

The cost of those contracts - £630 million - was quietly revealed by the DWP when it put the details of the deals online last Friday.

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The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, T.D. has welcomed the latest statistics published by the CSO today which show that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for May 2019 was 4.4%

The seasonally adjusted number of persons unemployed was 108,200 in May 2019, a decrease of 33,200 when compared to May 2018.  

“I particularly welcome the latest statistics published by the CSO today which show that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for May was 4.4%, down from 5.9% at the same time last year and the lowest recorded unemployment rate since February 2005".

Minister Doherty also welcomed the fall in the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for young people aged 15-24 years (youth unemployment rate) which was 10.0% in May 2019, a decrease from 14.7% in May 2018. Overall, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for males of 4.7% shows a drop from 6.1% in May 2018, while the rate for females was 4.2% was down from 5.8% in May 2018.”
The Minister added:

“Today’s figures are testament to the range of measures we have put in place to counter unemployment and get people trained and back into the workforce.  The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection continues to provide supports to unemployed people who are returning to work, to employers who give work to jobseekers and to those who become self-employed.  Work opportunities continue to be available across a range of sectors and we will continue to ensure that people are given the support they need to take up these opportunities.  We cannot become complacent however, and my focus now is to make every effort to reduce youth unemployment further and to tackle the circumstances holding some of the long term unemployed back.”

Image: The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, T.D.

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Ford is expected to announce plans to close its engine plant in Bridgend, South Wales, after operating there for 40 years. The company will meet with union leaders later today when the announcement on the future of the site will be made. As many as 1,700 jobs are under threat, with hundreds more of people who are employed in businesses that supply Ford’s plant.
 
Regional organiser for the GMB union, Jeff Beck, said the closure would “mean disaster for both our members in Bridgend and the community at large”. Ford haven’t commented “on speculation”.

Image: Ford Plant Bridgend.
 
The UK’s car industry has been under struggle in recent months, with Honda announcing plans to close its Swindon plant in 2021 and Nissan cancelling plans to manufacture its X-Trail model in the UK. This also comes after figures showed falling car sales in the UK last week.

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