A poor state of affairs
It is ironic that, only days after the Hong Kong Council of Social Service reported that poverty had shot up in recent years - with one in four children now living below the poverty line - the Worldwide Fund for Nature issued a report saying that Hong Kong residents consume twice as many natural resources as the average person worldwide.
This is a sad commentary on Hong Kong, where ostentatious consumption is the lifestyle of the wealthy. Moreover, the situation is getting worse, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. In the early 1980s, the wealthiest 10 per cent of families took 35.2 per cent of the overall income, while the poorest 10 per cent accounted for 1.4 per cent. Now, the top 10 per cent takes 41.2 per cent and the bottom 10 per cent accounts for below 1 per cent.
A look at the figures on poverty is sobering. In December 1996, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, together with Oxfam Hong Kong, did a joint study and found that 640,000 people, or 11 per cent of the population, lived in poverty. Now, less than eight years later, the number of poor people has increased to 1.12 million.
Christine Fang Meng-sang, head of the council, said that someone from the chief executive's office had phoned after the poverty figures were publicised, asking whether the council had any concrete ideas. While it is heartening to learn that the chief executive's office took the trouble to call, the fact remains that governmental sympathy for the poor did not prevent it cutting welfare benefits by 11 per cent.
The priority assigned by the government to helping the poor is reflected in the fact that Hong Kong does not even have an official poverty line. Instead, social work agencies define poor families as those whose income is less than one-half the median household income, or $9,000 a month for a family of four.
It is important to draw such a line because, in most countries, governments determine the eligibility of individuals to participate in poverty-alleviation programmes by referring to the official poverty line. In the United States, for example, the Head Start programme, which aims to help children from low-income families get out of a cycle that traps people in poverty from generation to generation, is guided by the official poverty line.
Hong Kong, too, needs programmes like that to help children from poor families. Head Start began in America 40 years ago. Isn't it about time that Hong Kong did something for its children from poor families?
Not only does the government not have an official poverty line, it does not even have a department or an official responsible for tackling poverty. While many departments are involved in meeting the needs of the poor, such as housing, education, health care and so on, there should at the very least be a cross-department strategy for fighting poverty, and a single official given overall responsibility for the task.
In this area, we may learn from the mainland, which has established a Poverty Eradication Office, under the State Council. Paradoxically, a Hong Kong poverty fighter, Chong Chan-yau, executive director of Oxfam Hong Kong, has just received a poverty-eradication award from the mainland. Mr Chong has suggested that Hong Kong put more emphasis on the poor by forming a Poverty Commission, including non-governmental organisations, businesses, professionals and academics to provide input on policies and programmes.
There is no shortage of ideas for fighting poverty, but the government has, so far, shown little receptivity to them, or any real commitment.
Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based journalist and commentator
