Families in Tin Shui Wai are effectively the city's lowest paid, says academic
The first official figures on pay trends in a troubled Yuen Long new town show the percentage of families making less than HK$10,000 a month has halved in five years.
However, over the same period, median household income in Tin Shui Wai in the northwest New Territories dropped from HK$17,300 to HK$13,750 a month, the second-lowest in Hong Kong and just HK$250 ahead of Sham Shui Po. Law Chi-kwong, a professor of social work at University of Hong Kong, said the figures showed people in Tin Shui Wai were effectively the poorest in Hong Kong.
'Remember, the prices in Sham Shui Po are lower,' Dr Law said.
Median pay in Tin Shui Wai is HK$9,000, the lowest in the city, according to the latest by-census.
Nearly 26,000 families, or 31.8 per cent, earn less than HK$10,000 a month. And just 13.8 per cent of families enjoyed a monthly income of more than HK$30,000.
Social workers have long been requesting income figures for the new town, but the government has until now said it could not provide them because the number of households there which are sampled for the quarterly general household survey is too small.