Tracking the Distributive Effect of Budgets - 2023 Edition

Each year, on the day after the annual Budget is announced, Social Justice Ireland produces an analysis and critique of that Budget. Included in that document is an assessment of the direct distributive impact of the measures announced by Government. These principally capture changes to income taxes, welfare payments and other universal payments/entitlements.

This document complements our most recent analysis, following Budget 2023. It also provides two further assessments of recent distributive choices:

• a distributive analysis of Government’s various cost of living and energy crisis measures, those implemented and scheduled, between February 2022 and July 2023; and
• a distributive analysis of the three Budget’s delivered to date by the current Government (Budget 2021 in October 2020, Budget 2022 in October 2021, and Budget 2023 in September 2022),

We also include an assessment of how the gaps between jobseekers and those on middle and very high incomes have changed over recent years including the impact of the measures in the most recent Budget and cost of living initiatives.

The final section of the document provides further details on the approach taken by Social Justice Ireland to generate these results.