Topic

Old age allowancei

Commonly known as "fruit money", the old age allowance is a monthly cash subsidy the Hong Kong government pays to senior citizens aged 65-69 with low incomes, and all elderly citizens aged 70 and over. The Leung Chun-ying administration in 2012 proposed to introduce a new means-tested subsidy called the Old Age Living Allowance, which provides HK$2,200 per month for the needy only. 

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Those under the Old Age Living Allowance scheme are set to receive HK$3,815 per month from second half of 2022, with the current two payments combined into one subsidy.

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In most parts of rural China, a growing number of elderly residents are forced to rely on their own labour, their children or their meagre savings in their twilight years.

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There are some positives to having the ‘world’s oldest population’: Japan is leading the way in welfare funding, dementia care and social initiatives for the retired.

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Given the shaky economic conditions in Hong Kong and globally, higher wages could hit job openings in an already tight employment market and ironically push more workers, especially the unskilled and vulnerable elderly, further into poverty.

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Researchers reviewed 8,000 historical cases from between 1976 and 2014 involving residents aged 65 or over, and according to the study how someone died could also be linked to maximum daily temperatures.

With Hong Kong’s 65 and older population set to double over the next 25 years, investments in health care, education, job training, fair wages and an efficient retirement system are necessary to care for the elderly while benefiting the young.

To still be working aged 70 is not a milestone many Hongkongers are necessarily proud of - yet in a city lacking much of a social safety net for those who toiled all their lives, it can be inevitable.

As many as 19,000 elderly Hongkongers living in Guangdong have applied to a one-off scheme that allows them to receive so-called fruit money without returning to the city, the Social Welfare Department said.

The chief executive may not be universally popular, but that should not mean his policies should be disregarded. Since July last year, Leung Chun-ying has taken steps on each of the four key issues he promised to tackle: housing, poverty, ageing and the environment.

Residents who are eligible for the new elderly allowance are delighted to get some help to cope with the higher cost of living, but others with just a little too much money in the bank are not happy with the government's stringent means test.

A problem in government computer records may mean some elderly residents eligible for the new old-age allowance will not receive the money next week as promised. Meanwhile, thousands of people who received letters saying they could get the HK$2,200 handout have replied that they are no longer eligible.

The old-age living allowance to be introduced in April is expected to cover Hongkongers in Guangdong by the end of next year. Welfare secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung said the government would extend the means-tested HK$2,200-a-month allowance to Hongkongers who retired across the border after the scheme had been in place for more than a year.