2021 MESL Income Adequacy Benchmark

The tables below detail scenarios benchmarking the adequacy of incomes for a set of representative household types.

Household income is assessed in social welfare dependent scenarios and in employed scenarios. For older people, household income is based on the State Contributory or Non Contributory Pension.

In employed scenarios household income is comprised of income from work (based on the national minimum wage) and any relevant social welfare entitlements.

Social Welfare dependent scenarios

Minimum Wage employment scenarios

The core MESL expenditure need data, for the full range of household compositions covered by the data, are available in the Expenditure Budgets section.