One in three elderly Hongkongers living in poverty despite slight overall drop in number of poor
Total number of poor has dropped, Carrie Lam reveals, but growing ranks of retirees mean more will rely on handouts from government
Hong Kong faces an "uphill battle" against poverty despite the latest figures revealing a slight drop in the number of people living below the official line that defines who is poor, says the city's chief secretary.
More than 1.3 million - out of a population of just under 7.2 million - still live in poverty, according to an annual government report released yesterday. The problem is particularly acute among the elderly, approximately one in three of whom live below the poverty line.
However, official intervention in the form of welfare and the fact that official measures only take income, not assets, into account, may skew the figures.
Speaking at the Commission on Poverty Summit yesterday, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said tackling poverty as society experienced "extremely fast-ageing" would be "an uphill battle". She cited figures showing elderly poverty had increased by 19 per cent - from 366,500 poor elderly in 2009 to 436,400 in 2014.
The total number of poor in the city was 1.325 million in 2014, slightly lower than the 1.336 million in 2013.