Minimum Income Standard for Ireland

Issued: February 2012

Summary

Current debates about the eradication of poverty are not sufficiently informed by socially agreed empirically based income standards. They have been developed by negotiation between policy-makers at national level and not by informed social consensus about what households need in order to have a minimum essential standard of living. Poverty is officially measured through income and deprivation measures, but these are not based on a standard of living which meets a household’s minimum essential needs. This research sets out to establish a minimum income standard for Ireland, based on the minimum needs of household types across the lifecycle, as determined through the consensual budget standards work of the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice.