The benefits come into effect from Monday onwards.
Increases to social welfare payments announced in last year’s budget will come into effect from Monday (26 March).
In total, €20 billion is to be spent on two million beneficiaries in 2018, with the maximum rate of all weekly payments – jobseekers, carers, lone parents, pensioners etc. – increasing by €5 per week.
As a result, jobseeker’s benefit will increase to a rate of €198 per week, while there will be a €5 per week increase for jobseekers aged under 26 on a reduced rate of payment and a €2 increase in all qualified child dependant weekly payments.
The €20 billion provision in Budget 2017, meanwhile, also includes an increase in the National Minimum Wage from €9.25 per hour to €9.55 per hour (which came into effect on 1 January, 2018) and a Christmas Bonus worth €219 million (85% of regular social welfare payment, minimum payment of €20) that will be paid to 1.2 million long-term social welfare recipients in December of this year.
Details of all the increases can be viewed on the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection website here and here.
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