Critics accuse Hong Kong government of already deciding to opt for a means-tested scheme rather than a full-blown universal pension
Officials were served heated discussion on a cold day at the first meet-the-public session on retirement protection yesterday.
Boos, protests and insults were flung around the Leighton Community Hall in Happy Valley during Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s introduction and during the dialogue.
There were also protesters outside in the cold urging the government to consider a universal option, while others with loudspeakers countered it with pro-government chants.
Launched a month ago, the six-month consultation seems to have widened the rift instead of bringing consensus.
On the table are two options: a truly universal scheme in which every elderly person receives HK$3,000 a month regardless of income or assets and a means-tested scheme where those with assets of less than HK$80,000 would get such a monthly allowance.
The government’s explicit stand that it preferred the latter and had “reservations about the ‘regardless of rich or poor’ principle” of any universal retirement scheme has irked many.
Leung, who is in construction work, said he had come all the way from Tuen Mun to join the meeting. “I had originally come – took time off work – so I could express my views here. But clearly, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
He left after shouting out that the consultation was “a sham”, and then stomped off before the question and answer session.
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Others who were given a chance to speak voiced a range of opinions – from devoted support for the government stance, to some who called the process a farce. Others questioned why the government was willing to put in so much money to build the bridge from Hong Kong to Zhuhai and Macau, yet was unwilling to support local elderly people.
“The discussion is in danger of becoming polarised,” said former Social Welfare Department chief Stephen Fisher, who feared that no consensus could be reached and that retirement protection would end up like constitutional reform – with nothing achieved.
It was obvious that the government was against a universal plan, added Fisher, who is currently a member of the government- appointed Commission on Poverty, which is in charge of the consultation.
He called the asset limit of HK$80,000 for the means-tested plan “shockingly low” and unacceptable, but also admitted there was “no possibility” of a universal plan under the current administration.
READ MORE: Retirement protection a human right, not just a fight against poverty in Hong Kong, says seniors
“If it’s either all or nothing for us, we will end up with nothing,” he said, urging NGOs and advocacy groups to negotiate for a more acceptable asset limit.
In the consultation, the government’s means-tested option will benefit only 23 per cent of elderly Hongkongers, which is only about 250,000 out of 1.12 million people. The annual expenditure on the scheme will increase from HK$2.5 billion last year if it had been implemented then to HK$6 billion in 2064.
The universal option would see all elderly people receiving HK$3,000 a month, with expenditure rising from HK$22.6 billion last year to HK$56.3 billion in 2064. The elderly population by 2064 is projected to reach around 3.58 million.
A proposal by Wong and other academics would see close to HK$17 billion left over in government coffers by 2064, while another by expert Nelson Chow Wing-sun would see a HK$5.9 billion surplus by that time.
The academics are boycotting the consultation, instead holding their own.
Council of Social Service chief executive Chua Hoi-wai countered the government’s HK$80,000 asset limit for elderly Hongkongers with a HK$1 million limit.
“We are extremely disappointed ... by the government’s predisposition, and we think the information they provided is skewed,” said Sisi Liu Pui-shan, director of the Federation of Women’s Centres, who said the group was discussing the issue with its members , many of whom are housewives dependent on their husbands’ retirement funds.
FOUR VIEWS ON RETIREMENT PROTECTION
Kwok Chih-yin, 83, retired
A non-universal retirement protection scheme would not work for the current generation of elderly Hongkongers, says 83-year-old Kwok Chih-yin.
Kwok is well-informed on the debate over a retirement scheme and often gives media interviews and takes part in peaceful protests over policies concerning the elderly.
“I may be poor enough to qualify for some of the government subsidies, but many folks aren’t. Some don’t like the means tests so they’d rather suffer than have their personal stuff rifled through,” he says, explaining why he is so vocal about his views.
“This is why it’s important to have universal retirement protection.”
He says that a universal retirement scheme of some HK$3,200 a month may not seem a lot, but it would be incredibly beneficial to the elderly – who can then plan their retirement based on that guaranteed monthly income – and in the long-term save the government trouble.
The government should pay more – a responsibility it should take for dragging its feet on the subject since the 1980s, says Kwok, while the scheme became much more expensive. “The pension wouldn’t make us afford a luxurious life, but it’s more for basic subsistence. I don’t think that’s asking for too much,” he adds.
Kwok lives alone in an old tenement flat, reached after climbing eight flights of stairs. His savings, which dried up a long time ago, were mainly used for his late wife’s medical bills before she died more than a decade ago.
Kwok says people of his generation have little education but most have worked all their lives, only to be beaten down by high living standards.
“No one likes asking for help – the worst is feeling like a burden. But the government has made us feel like this,” he says.
Sandra Li Yan-yin, 22, student
Retirement protection should be seen as a right and not a poverty alleviation policy, says Sandra Li Yan-yin. The final-year social work student at City University is angry about the government’s attitude towards the whole topic.
“This public consultation isn’t to consult the public, it’s to cajole the public into seeing it their way,” she says. Li seems quite set on having a universal retirement protection plan, calling it a matter of principle.
She criticises the government consultation for not including more feasible options – like a three-pronged funding model where government, corporates and taxpayers contribute – but choosing to present the universal retirement plan option solely in terms of tax rises. There are so many other universal retirement protection plans which the government has ignored, she says.
Most of her friends are for the idea of a non-means-tested universal scheme, she adds. Li says her father has already retired and has a lump of money, which he will share with her mother – who as a housewife has neither Mandatory Provident Fund nor any retirement savings.
A fresh graduate has an income of roughly HK$10,800 – barely enough to cover student debt and housing needs. “Ultimately, having a universal plan is beneficial for the young generation – like us – as well,” she says. “I’m not even sure if I could fully support my parents.”
Li doesn’t mind paying a bit more tax to fund a universal model, but only if the government also commits to more and the corporate sector pays in the form of profits tax.
“Hong Kong’s profits tax actually decreased from 18.5 per cent to the 16.5 per cent now,” she says.
“Our policies are so in favour of corporations and businesses, I think it’s important for them to take up social responsibility… I don’t think the taxpayers should shoulder the whole bill.”
Nicolas Pouliot, 26, analyst
At first, credit analyst Nicolas Pouliot was against the idea of a universal pension.
But he changed his mind after noticing an old lady who pushed a cart of cardboard up and down the streets near his home.
“I refuse to believe that she’d be doing that if she didn’t need the money… If there was a less strenuous job, I believe she’d pick it. It’s abominable how we allow this injustice to happen,” he says.
“I think a lot of the poor elderly don’t like to expose how poor they are. We also have to take into account their dignity,” he adds, and that establishing a universal scheme is possibly a necessary price to pay to ensure the needy elderly can be supported. He says he understands that a retired elderly person who held a working-class job would have insecurities.
“I think it’s important for retirement protection to be inclusive rather than overly exclusive ... it is better to include most than to exclude most,” he says. For example, only the 10 per cent richest elderly will not benefit from the scheme, unlike the means-tested government proposal where over 70 per cent of all elderly people will not be eligible.
Pouliot was born and raised in Hong Kong and went to a local school until he went abroad after completing Form 4.
Not a lot of people in his social circle are interested in the topic of retirement protection, he says, as most are from middle to upper class families whose parents already have retirement funds in place.
Pouliot believes slightly higher taxes to generate a more inclusive retirement protection fund will be acceptable.
He also questions the government’s stance that a universal retirement protection scheme is unsustainable and unaffordable, solely based on one population projection.
Pinny Law Miu-sheung, 58, housewife
Pinny Law Miu-sheung has followed the debate on retirement protection closely because, as a housewife, she has none.
And Law says she has formed the distinct impression that the government does not want to set up a plan to ensure that Hongkongers can retire without worrying about their daily needs.
“It’s quite obvious to me that the government doesn’t want to set up a universal retirement protection scheme ... and then for the means-tested option, an asset limit of HK$80,000 is so ridiculously tight,” she says, adding that the government’s reluctance to consider a universal option is upsetting. “This is why I think they don’t want to do anything at all.”
The mother-of-three often worries about what will happen when her husband, 63, retires. Law says her husband worked on the mainland for years before returning to Hong Kong recently to work in security.
They bought their public housing flat years ago. Their current housing-related spending such as utility bills and rates amounts to HK$2,500 a month, she says.
Law became a full-time housewife in her early 30s after the birth of her second child. In recent years, with her children grown up, she became a full-time caregiver to both her mother and mother-in-law.
Law’s son is married with a child, while her two younger daughters both have jobs. But she does not want to be a burden on them. “Government support for the young folks is not enough, so it’s hard for them to support us.”
“In the current situation, we’d just try to use up our small savings soon after [my husband] retires so we can qualify for the Old Age Living Allowance, and live sparingly on HK2,200 a month … Without a universal pension scheme, you make poor people, then attempt to alleviate their poverty.”
