LettersWhat Hong Kong needs is universal basic income

Name: Jobless struggle to make ends meet in Hong Kong as city battles coronavirus and recession
Uploaded: 2021-02-24T23:15:07.000Z
Duration: 4 min 53 s
Description: Jobless struggle to make ends meet in Hong Kong as city battles coronavirus and recession

When we have a government focused on the financial sector, and beholden to a small group of oligarchs, the deep-rooted problems of general poverty, insecurity and resentment escape attention

The economic impact of Covid-19, together with the tide of digitisation and artificial intelligence, means we may never see full employment

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A woman pulls her trolley of cardboard boxes and discarded electronic items down Elgin Street in Central, Hong Kong’s premier business district. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Letters

Published: 7:15am, 25 Feb 2021Updated: 7:15am, 25 Feb 2021

The letters “How adopting socialism and capitalism with characteristics of city will improve our lives” (February 9) and “Billions for business, a freeze in minimum wage: city must tackle entrenched inequality” (February 15) hit the nail on the head.

Laissez-faire economic policies should have had their funeral after the financial crisis in 2008. But when we have a government focused on the financial sector, and beholden to a small group of oligarchs, the deep-rooted problems of general poverty, insecurity and resentment escape attention.

This entrenched mindset is illustrated by the apparent disdain in Law Chi-kwong’s comments that a monthly cash allowance would “distort the relationship” between employers and staff and that no government will provide financial assistance without contribution and means testing (“Hong Kong jobless rate hits 7 per cent as Covid-19 fourth wave takes toll”, February 18).

Our secretary for Labour and Welfare is apparently uninformed on the results of universal basic income schemes that have already been successfully piloted in many places, such as Alaska, Finland and parts of Brazil, Canada and India.

In Hong Kong, the term “a caring government” has become an oxymoron in 2021. The economic impact of Covid-19 – together with the tide of digitisation, robotics, big data and artificial intelligence – means we will not see full employment in the future. The administration needs to come to terms with this sea change.

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Jobless struggle to make ends meet in Hong Kong as city battles coronavirus and recession

Citizens are not just consumers, and community is more than gross domestic product. The tendency is for officials to view people as either “smart” entitled winners or “dumb” losers who have only themselves to blame. They forget how the accident of birth, the role of luck and the mystery of fate impacts all our lives.