With the exchange rate, if they gave people on welfare 216. euros or about 300.00+/week here in the US, no one making 8 or 9 dollars an hour or less would work. Considering taxes, it would make working for 10.00 dollars an hour kind of silly too.

I guess in america people are used to scraping by then. That's very generous, 216. euros per week. Wages here for unskilled labor, even a lot of skilled labor, really hasn't kept pace with inflation the past 30 years or so.

I am not sure, but 216. euros/300+ dollars/week is probably close to what the welfare system might give a person they feel is qualified, per month, in the US.

In states like Michigan where workers unionized and got themselves a respectable $18/hr or so for their labor, a lot of the industry simply packed up and moved to Mexico or china or somewhere else overseas. Ireland does have a good reputation for attracting tech industry and other jobs becaiuse of it's low taxes on businesses.

There will probably be a huge nursing shortage in a couple years because nurses, who don't make the big bucks dpctors do, are afraid of things like the MRSA/staph going around in hospitals/nursing homes etc. They might make anywhere from $12-18 and hour. So it's not really worth it for them to stay and risk their health and the health of their families.