MESL 2024

The 2024 MESL report highlights the essential costs required for a dignified life in Ireland, and underscores the severe impact of inflation and rising living costs over recent years.

The MESL offers a publicly determined benchmark for household minimum needs, providing a needs-based indicator of the income required for individuals and households to live with dignity.

The annual MESL update captures changes in the cost of the minimum basket of goods and services. While there is now a relative stabilisation in costs, the cumulative effects of inflation over recent years highlights the need for continued policy intervention to ensure an adequate social protection floor and a dignified standard of living for all.

The MESL provides an evidence-based indicator of the current cost of the goods and services required to enable a socially acceptable minimum standard of living. In this way, the MESL expenditure data serves as a benchmark to assess the adequacy of social welfare supports and the national minimum wage.