Poverty and Inequality in Ireland: A Comparison using Measures of Income and Consumption

This paper provides a detailed description of recent trends in inequality and poverty in Ireland. To date most of the analysis of inequality and poverty in Ireland has used cross-section data on income. We supplement the information on income with detailed data on individual expenditure taken from the Household Budget Survey. For both measures of resources we provide a detailed analysis of changes in inequality and poverty over the last decade. While our results on inequality are not sensitive to the choice of resource measure used, the identification of people in poverty differs across measures. Self-employed households fare better when expenditure is used to measure resources while the opposite is true for households headed by individuals who are retired or on home duties.