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Carrie Lam policy address 2019
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Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Enhanced welfare package will lift more than 27,000 people in Hong Kong out of poverty: Law Chi-kwong

  • Welfare chief says the measures will lower poverty rate by 0.4 per cent
  • The city’s total poor population hit 1,377,000 in 2017
Victor Ting

Hong Kong’s welfare minister has hailed the “substantial changes” in social security provisions announced in this year’s policy address, claiming the basket of measures will lower the city’s poverty rate by 0.4 per cent, benefiting about 27,400 people.

In a cross-departmental press conference on Friday, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong also echoed city leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and said the government was open to introducing rent subsidies and rent control, in a bid to help grass roots cope with rising living costs in the city.

In her third policy address on Wednesday, the chief executive focused heavily on housing and welfare relief initiatives designed to woo the city’s poor amid months-long anti-government protests and social discontent.

Hong Kong’s total poor population hit 1,377,000 in 2017, representing a poverty rate of 20.1 per cent and the highest in nine years, according to official figures. A one-person household is considered poor if it earns a monthly income of less than HK$4,000 (US$510), while the poverty line of a two-people household is estimated at HK$9,800.

The poverty rate of 20.1 per cent in 2017 was the highest in nine years. Photo: Roy Issa

Under the enhanced welfare package, all rates of working family allowance will be raised by 16.7 to 25 per cent. A four-person household with two children, for example, can claim up to HK$4,200 a month, up from HK$3,200.

“It is a substantial change in our social security system that will lift more people out of poverty, and encourage them into work,” said Law.

But critics had complained the measures did not go far enough, saying there were only 45,500 recipients of the scheme, a long way off the government’s target of 200,000.

“Law is being complacent if he is satisfied about cutting poverty rate by just 0.4 per cent,” said Sanyo Ng Shan-yiu, spokeswoman for the concern group Alliance for Social Protection of Low Income Families.

Hong Kong policy address key takeaways: Leader Carrie Lam homes in on housing ‘grievances’ and unveils cash sweeteners in bid to rescue city from brink

Ng added many Hongkongers in low-income households could not work full-time, as they could not afford childcare and other support, and thus would only be entitled to a lower rate of the allowance as it was linked to working hours. She urged the government to lower the requirement of basic allowance from 144 hours a month to 72, to benefit more people in need.

Another key plank of the government’s poverty alleviation strategy announced on Wednesday was a new round of a one-off living subsidy for low-income households not living in public rental housing and not receiving Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA), and increasing the maximum rates of rent allowance for CSSA households from between 3 and 27 per cent.

Health minister Sophia Chan. Photo: Jonathan Wong

While the government had not formally introduced a rent subsidy, Law said he was open to the idea as well as bringing back rent control, but admitted the latter involved statutory changes, which would take a few years.

Carrie Lam’s policy address was a missed opportunity to offer an olive branch to break Hong Kong’s political impasse, analysts and allies lament

At the same press conference, health minister Sophia Chan Siu-chee said the government had laid out a “multipronged” strategy on health care, pointing to the primary care initiatives that included a pledge to set up district health centres in seven districts and district health centres express, a smaller version of the former, in the remaining 11 districts within the term of Lam’s administration.

“We would place the emphasis on prevention as much as on cure. With district health centres that will have nurses, pharmacists and physiotherapists offering health counselling, people will have greater awareness and ability to manage their own health, therefore reducing the burden on public hospitals,” Chan said.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Critics fire back as ministers hail latest welfare measures
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