Half of workers feel pinch in pay packets
THE recession is hitting hard, with 53pc of Irish workers saying they have had to take a pay cut, according to a new poll.
And three quarters have had to accept a pay freeze, a cut in hours, or have been made redundant, the survey found.
Only one in 20 say they are better off now than a year ago, according to the field results of Lansdowne Market Research.
The 5pc who think they are better off represent a drop of more than half from the figure in January of this year (11pc) -- and a massive collapse from the 27pc last September who felt their lives had improved.
Two-thirds (66pc) say they are worse off, a jump from 46pc in a poll carried out in January. Only 27pc reckoned themselves worse off last September than 12 months previously.
Optimism is also on the slide, with only 15pc expecting to be better off in a year's time, with 33pc thinking the situation will remain the same. More than half of all citizens, at 52pc, expect to be even worse off.
Warnings
Those figures may reflect government warnings that there are at least two more doses of harsh medicine yet to come in the Budgets for 2010 and 2011.
Government popularity has halved from the 2pc who thought they were going a "very good" job in January to only 1pc today. But the number thinking they have turned in a "fairly good" performance has risen from 8pc to 11pc.
Those rating the Government as "very poor" have risen steadily from 37pc last September to 48pc in January, and 52pc today.
The poll was carried out by Lansdowne last week, among a nationally representative sample of 1,000 people aged 15 and over.
Worryingly for the Government, 82pc of the electorate agree that the wealthy should have been taxed more by Mr Lenihan, although 71pc accept that increased taxes are a necessary evil.
Only 45pc agreed the Budget was not as bad as they expected, but 56pc doubted it would kickstart the economy and a similar number would have preferred increased borrowings rather than higher taxes.
But 15pc believe the country is now on the right track, up from 10pc in January. The numbers believing we are on the wrong track have dropped slightly, from 84pc to a still-shocking 77pc.
In 2005, by contrast, 41pc of people believed the country was on the right track.
- Senan Molony Deputy Political Editor
