One of the CWC’s areas of work is to ensure that members and others are kept up to date with policy development, policy decisions and their impact.

Below is a link to the Department of Social Protection’s document outlining the social impact assessment of the main welfare and tax measures for 2015.

What this assessment shows is that while budgetary policy decisions will result in an increase in average household incomes for the first time since the economic crisis, the poorest households, families and individuals gained least by the budgetary decisions taken.

The gain in average income as a result of the budgetary measures is 0.7% of average household income – approximately €6 per week.

In general if you look at who has benefited most, it shows that the richest households gained most and the poorest households gained least

Though poorest households gained most as a result of welfare measures they lose more than the richest households as a result of the water charges, and the richest households gained most from tax changes.

While most family types gained, non-earning households do least well, with unemployed couples without children recording a loss in income. Non-earning lone parents gained by less than half the average