I received an email from Hri last night -- he mentioned that he had been trying to respond to my last post the past couple of days, but for some reason had not been able to post the comment. He then asked for my help to publish it.
Given the length of his response, and also the attention that our exchange seems to have garnered, we decided that it would be appropriate to publish his response as a standalone blog post. I've not really had time to digest it fully, but will aim to respond over the weekend -- since this is my blog, it's my chance to have the last word! :)
Hri's response is reproduced below in full, without edits.
Kum Hong,
We agree on a number of things. You have met my “extreme” example of an able-bodied person who does not want to work (I have met some, by the way) with another “extreme” - “the single mother supporting two children and an elderly mother, who has to go home after work to take care of her children and mother”. We both agree that the latter is more deserving of help.
But where we disagree is this: you feel that no help exists currently, and the children of the single mother will be trapped in the poverty cycle. The truth is that she will be helped, by both the Government as well as private parties. Let me give you some concrete examples. One of things we try our best to ensure is that no child is deprived of a good education, or even a meal in school, because of the lack of funds. So we help poor families with a combination of Government subsidies, COMCARE support, The School Pocket Money Fund and other sources. In Bishan Toa-Payoh GRC, we raised over $3 million last year from private donors to fund community scholarships for children of poor families for the next 10 years. We even visit the homes of those who do not enroll their children in kindergarten (although enrolment is not compulsory) to make sure that this not because of the lack of funds; and if it is, we help them with the fees. The number of children who do not go to kindergarten has now fallen to 1% of their cohort - most of these children are home-schooled.
So, it is easy to berate the current system as “punish(ing) the children for the sins of their parents”. But that is simplistic and inaccurate.
I prefer our current system which directs help to those who need it, rather than one which purports to give universal and unconditional aid. It actually means much more work for the Government, as it involves examining each case and determining the most effective form of help to give. But I think that is a worthwhile exercise as different families have different challenges and circumstances. What is wrong is for us to simply give public money to everyone who holds his hand out, without proper scrutiny and assurance that it will be effective and reaches the right people. Many taxpayers will object to using public money to support people who can help themselves. Their views are also relevant.
I am not suggesting that we have a perfect system. We do not. Where we can, and should never stop trying to, improve is to develop a system which ensures that every Singaporean who needs help is not missed. That is a real challenge. The only way to meet it is to involve everyone, from the Government, grassroots organizations, VWOs and the immediate community. Every Singaporean should feel that he has a part to play in looking out for those less fortunate than him. I think that is how it should be.
There will also be challenging cases – like your example of an able-bodied father who refuses to work, to the detriment of his children. I know of a real life example in my constituency. The way we helped was to find work for his wife, and to calibrate our aid so that the children have their needs met and are able to continue their education. We did not “turn our heads away”.
So I think we can agree on one more thing – real life does not lend itself to simple solutions like the one you have posed. But I am happy that this debate has gained interest, because it shows that Singaporeans feel strongly about this issue.
Showing posts with label income gap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label income gap. Show all posts
Friday, 18 March 2011
Sunday, 13 March 2011
Response to questions from Hri Kumar
It seems that MP Hri Kumar posted a comment in response to my piece "Room for fresh ideas on income gap". I missed it earlier but was just told about it.
Here is his comment in full:
I guess Hri and I must have very starting points and different philosophies on how (and to what extent) to help those less fortunate than us. Prof Kishore Mahbubani has suggested that the Government has, through its own surveys, ascertained that it costs S$1700 pre month for a 4-person household to maintain a "reasonable standard of living" -- as defined by the Government itself. The question then is whether we, as a society, have a duty to ensure that everyone has that reasonable standard of living (and corresponding standards for households with different configurations), and if so how.
I will take each of Hri's questions in turn:
How does this idea work? If an able-bodied person decides that he does not want to work, do we all have to ensure that he has a "minimal standard of living"?
In an earlier piece "Beefing Up Workfare" (published in TODAY on 24 Jan 2011), I had advocated using Workfare (but essentially pumped up on steroids) as the basic mechanism to get working families up to $1700 per month. So I do not subscribe to the idea of giving an able-bodied person, who deliberately chooses not to work, $1700 per month.
But as we will see below, this question oversimplifies the difficulties of real life.
If he is earning a living, but refuses to upgrade himself, do we pay him the difference between what he earns and the "minimum" sum he needs?
What does "refusal" mean? Perhaps we need to define that. I can anticipate the theoretical construct of an able-bodied person who is the sole breadwinner who works and earns a living (short of $1700), who can find the time to go for upgrading but deliberately chooses not to, because he/she prefers to sit in a coffeeshop drinking beer and smoking with friends.
But again, that may be an extreme. What about the single mother supporting two children and an elderly mother, who has to go home after work to take care of her children and mother? Does she have time to upgrade? If she declines to go for upgrading for this reason, is that "refusing to upgrade"?
What if the person works two jobs, both of which still come up to less than $1700, and going for upgrading might mean losing this precious second job? What if the person works just one job, but the job is not a fixed 9-5 job (as most jobs are wont to be nowadays), and the employer is not sympathetic and does not encourage the person to go for upgrading courses outside of working hours?
Do we penalise these workers as well, because of the possible existence of the theoretical construct?
In the Budget speeches, during the National Day Parade and at the National Day Rally, we frequently see celebrations of those workers who have managed to upgrade themselves and get better jobs. Kudos to them. But it would be a mistake to conclude from their shining examples, that all of the others who have not had those successes, had deliberately chosen not to take that path of upgrading.
Where is the money from the endowment fund going to come from - all of us I presume?
Yes, from all of us. If I were Carlos Slim, then I would fund all of this by myself. But if we, as a country, purport to subscribe to the principles of the Universal Declaration, then we have to fulfill those obligations applicable to us as a country.
In a Straits Times article "Thumbs-up for 'many helping hands'" (March 9, 2011), social welfare policy expert Prof Lester M. Salamon noted that "countries around the world have learnt that the problems of poverty, maintaining health, improving the environment, even fostering culture, cannot be handled by private philanthropy alone. 'They require as well the active involvement of government and the resources that government alone can command.'"
He went on: "No country that I am aware of has made the many helping hands philosophy work well yet without the government taking a significant leadership role. Perhaps Singapore will be the first one to do it. But since we don't have much data on non-profits here, we won't know whether it is working or not."
So yes, I think the money has to come from all of us, and I do not see an issue with that.
How much will such a fund require as a start and how much do we need to replenish it annually? What programs or other expenditure are we dropping to fund it? Unless these questions (and many others) are answered, I am afraid you have wasted a Saturday."
I'm not in a position to answer these questions -- the piece is meant (or rather hoped) to start a conversation, a debate, ideally a process. But the answers to these questions can be developed along the way.
I also don't understand why it is necessary to have all (or even most of) the answers in place before something can be considered; after all, even the Government conducts public consultations on proposed policies, presumably because the Government doesn't already have all the answers (otherwise it would be a wayang, would it not?). When MPs make speeches and propose policies, they also do not purport to offer complete solutions with all questions before making these suggestions.
So no, I don't feel like I had wasted that Saturday.
Since Hri has posed some questions, I have some of my own.
I agree that an able-bodied person may deliberately choose not to work, and we can then validly decide not to support him/her -- people have the right to choose, but they should also be prepared to live with the consequences of their choices.
But what about the others who are also impacted by those choices, but have no influence over it? If the able-bodied father of two children deliberately chooses not to work, and the mother is for some reason unable to work, then do we simply turn our heads away and ignore the children's and the mother's suffering? If the mother is able to work, but is not able to make enough to meet that $1700 per month standard, then do we nevertheless punish her and her children for the father's choices?
Do we ignore our duty to give the next generation the chance to succeed, and thereby punish them to a vicious cycle of poverty? Do we punish the children for the sins of their parents? Because punishment is exactly what it would be, if we have the power to help but decide not to -- because the father made the wrong decision. For all of the Government's rhetoric on personal responsibility and self-sufficiency, we hardly hear anything said about ensuring that the parents' sins are not visited on the children.
Yes, simple questions have clear, easy answers. But real life usually does not lend itself to simple questions like the ones posed to me above.
Here is his comment in full:
Kum Hong,
How does this idea work? If an able-bodied person decides that he does not want to work, do we all have to ensure that he has a "minimal standard of living"?
If he is earning a living, but refuses to upgrade himself, do we pay him the difference between what he earns and the "minimum" sum he needs? Where is the money from the endowment fund going to come from - all of us I presume?
How much will such a fund require as a start and how much do we need to replenish it annually? What programs or other expenditure are we dropping to fund it? Unless these questions (and many others) are answered, I am afraid you have wasted a Saturday."
I guess Hri and I must have very starting points and different philosophies on how (and to what extent) to help those less fortunate than us. Prof Kishore Mahbubani has suggested that the Government has, through its own surveys, ascertained that it costs S$1700 pre month for a 4-person household to maintain a "reasonable standard of living" -- as defined by the Government itself. The question then is whether we, as a society, have a duty to ensure that everyone has that reasonable standard of living (and corresponding standards for households with different configurations), and if so how.
I will take each of Hri's questions in turn:
How does this idea work? If an able-bodied person decides that he does not want to work, do we all have to ensure that he has a "minimal standard of living"?
In an earlier piece "Beefing Up Workfare" (published in TODAY on 24 Jan 2011), I had advocated using Workfare (but essentially pumped up on steroids) as the basic mechanism to get working families up to $1700 per month. So I do not subscribe to the idea of giving an able-bodied person, who deliberately chooses not to work, $1700 per month.
But as we will see below, this question oversimplifies the difficulties of real life.
If he is earning a living, but refuses to upgrade himself, do we pay him the difference between what he earns and the "minimum" sum he needs?
What does "refusal" mean? Perhaps we need to define that. I can anticipate the theoretical construct of an able-bodied person who is the sole breadwinner who works and earns a living (short of $1700), who can find the time to go for upgrading but deliberately chooses not to, because he/she prefers to sit in a coffeeshop drinking beer and smoking with friends.
But again, that may be an extreme. What about the single mother supporting two children and an elderly mother, who has to go home after work to take care of her children and mother? Does she have time to upgrade? If she declines to go for upgrading for this reason, is that "refusing to upgrade"?
What if the person works two jobs, both of which still come up to less than $1700, and going for upgrading might mean losing this precious second job? What if the person works just one job, but the job is not a fixed 9-5 job (as most jobs are wont to be nowadays), and the employer is not sympathetic and does not encourage the person to go for upgrading courses outside of working hours?
Do we penalise these workers as well, because of the possible existence of the theoretical construct?
In the Budget speeches, during the National Day Parade and at the National Day Rally, we frequently see celebrations of those workers who have managed to upgrade themselves and get better jobs. Kudos to them. But it would be a mistake to conclude from their shining examples, that all of the others who have not had those successes, had deliberately chosen not to take that path of upgrading.
Where is the money from the endowment fund going to come from - all of us I presume?
Yes, from all of us. If I were Carlos Slim, then I would fund all of this by myself. But if we, as a country, purport to subscribe to the principles of the Universal Declaration, then we have to fulfill those obligations applicable to us as a country.
In a Straits Times article "Thumbs-up for 'many helping hands'" (March 9, 2011), social welfare policy expert Prof Lester M. Salamon noted that "countries around the world have learnt that the problems of poverty, maintaining health, improving the environment, even fostering culture, cannot be handled by private philanthropy alone. 'They require as well the active involvement of government and the resources that government alone can command.'"
He went on: "No country that I am aware of has made the many helping hands philosophy work well yet without the government taking a significant leadership role. Perhaps Singapore will be the first one to do it. But since we don't have much data on non-profits here, we won't know whether it is working or not."
So yes, I think the money has to come from all of us, and I do not see an issue with that.
How much will such a fund require as a start and how much do we need to replenish it annually? What programs or other expenditure are we dropping to fund it? Unless these questions (and many others) are answered, I am afraid you have wasted a Saturday."
I'm not in a position to answer these questions -- the piece is meant (or rather hoped) to start a conversation, a debate, ideally a process. But the answers to these questions can be developed along the way.
I also don't understand why it is necessary to have all (or even most of) the answers in place before something can be considered; after all, even the Government conducts public consultations on proposed policies, presumably because the Government doesn't already have all the answers (otherwise it would be a wayang, would it not?). When MPs make speeches and propose policies, they also do not purport to offer complete solutions with all questions before making these suggestions.
So no, I don't feel like I had wasted that Saturday.
Since Hri has posed some questions, I have some of my own.
I agree that an able-bodied person may deliberately choose not to work, and we can then validly decide not to support him/her -- people have the right to choose, but they should also be prepared to live with the consequences of their choices.
But what about the others who are also impacted by those choices, but have no influence over it? If the able-bodied father of two children deliberately chooses not to work, and the mother is for some reason unable to work, then do we simply turn our heads away and ignore the children's and the mother's suffering? If the mother is able to work, but is not able to make enough to meet that $1700 per month standard, then do we nevertheless punish her and her children for the father's choices?
Do we ignore our duty to give the next generation the chance to succeed, and thereby punish them to a vicious cycle of poverty? Do we punish the children for the sins of their parents? Because punishment is exactly what it would be, if we have the power to help but decide not to -- because the father made the wrong decision. For all of the Government's rhetoric on personal responsibility and self-sufficiency, we hardly hear anything said about ensuring that the parents' sins are not visited on the children.
Yes, simple questions have clear, easy answers. But real life usually does not lend itself to simple questions like the ones posed to me above.
Monday, 28 February 2011
Room for fresh ideas on income gap
I wrote this over Saturday morning. The ideas in this piece had been percolating in my head over the past week, and they all came together and gushed out over a few hours. First published in today's TODAY.
Room for fresh ideas on income gap
Keep our economic model, but set up endowment to fund measures to ensure a minimal standard of living
05:55 AM Feb 28, 2011
As I thought about last week's Budget statement, a quote by Albert Einstein kept playing in my head. The pre-eminent genius of the 20th Century once said: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
I am of course not suggesting in any way that the Government is mad, but what struck me most about the Budget - which Parliament will debate today - was that it was pretty much more of the same, albeit "upsized" for the anticipated elections: More ad hoc special transfer payments to help the low-income, more tax incentives to increase productivity, more funding for training and research and development, so on and so forth.
Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said that Singapore's approach to helping the low-income must "remain centred on opportunities, not entitlements".
Many Singaporeans would agree with this, and they would disagree with the need to change a winning formula when the past policies have worked.
But I would hazard that most of those stuck at the wrong end of the widening income gap would disagree about the past policies having worked. Based on Department of Statistics figures, the Gini coefficient increased from 0.442 in 2000 to 0.472 last year, or from 0.430 to 0.452 if government special transfers are taken into account. So it is understandable for the low-income to question if more of the same would really address the issue.
At a forum at the National University of Singapore (NUS) last Tuesday, economist and NUS assistant professor Chia Ngee Choon noted that the Government's targeted 30-per-cent increase in productivity over the next 10 years would probably be achieved only by the middle and upper class, and asked: "Does this tide of economic growth raise all boats? It may raise only those in the middle income and above." In other words, the opportunities may be there, but they will fall largely to the middle- and high-income.
If the strategies used in the past have not successfully addressed one of the most critical socio-economic issues facing Singapore, why then would more and more of the same lead to a different outcome this time?
I am not advocating the wholesale abandonment of our existing economic model. But surely it is time for a fresh think about how to address the widening income gap.
For starters, the way we characterise and think about a stronger social safety net has to change. I am not calling for a Nordic-style cradle-to-grave social welfare system, or for the Government to use generous benefits backed by punitive taxes to equalise incomes across society.
But we have the room and resources for institutionalised social welfare measures to ensure a minimal standard of living reasonably commensurate with our overall developmental status as a society.
Anything beyond that minimal level should not be based on entitlement, but must instead result from the opportunities that the Finance Minister talked about, which we have to work hard to keep open to all. Entitlements and opportunities do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Some will argue that this would represent a dangerous first step down a slippery slope of ever-shriller calls for increased benefits. But this argument implies a willingness to disregard the suffering of our less-fortunate brethren, simply because of a theoretical risk that our Government cannot resist public pressure.
We can also mitigate any such "slippery slope" risk by funding such measures through a substantially-funded endowment fund, and topping up the fund only when resources are available - much like what is being done with the ElderCare and Comcare funds, as well as the National Research Fund.
The Government had, in its National Report for the United Nations' Universal Periodic Review process submitted recently, affirmed that "Singapore fully subscribes to the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)".
The UDHR provides for everyone to have the rights to social security and an adequate standard of living. But the latest Budget measures fall short of those commitments.
Government surveys have found that a four-person household needs about S$1,700 per month to cover basic costs of living, according to Professor Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Yet statistics show many low-income households in Singapore fall below this threshold, and there were no Budget measures to specifically rectify this.
Ad hoc transfers like the one-off "Grow and Share" package in this year's Budget fall short of what our commitment to the UDHR requires, depending as they do on the existence of surpluses and the discretion and generosity of the government of the day.
In his New Year message at the start of this year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong identified the widening income gap as a key concern to tackle. The lack of fresh ideas in the Budget statement was therefore disappointing. Hopefully this will change after the Budget debate that starts today.
Siew Kum Hong is a corporate counsel and the vice-president of MARUAH (Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, Singapore), a human rights NGO and gazetted political association.
Room for fresh ideas on income gap
Keep our economic model, but set up endowment to fund measures to ensure a minimal standard of living
05:55 AM Feb 28, 2011
As I thought about last week's Budget statement, a quote by Albert Einstein kept playing in my head. The pre-eminent genius of the 20th Century once said: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
I am of course not suggesting in any way that the Government is mad, but what struck me most about the Budget - which Parliament will debate today - was that it was pretty much more of the same, albeit "upsized" for the anticipated elections: More ad hoc special transfer payments to help the low-income, more tax incentives to increase productivity, more funding for training and research and development, so on and so forth.
Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said that Singapore's approach to helping the low-income must "remain centred on opportunities, not entitlements".
Many Singaporeans would agree with this, and they would disagree with the need to change a winning formula when the past policies have worked.
But I would hazard that most of those stuck at the wrong end of the widening income gap would disagree about the past policies having worked. Based on Department of Statistics figures, the Gini coefficient increased from 0.442 in 2000 to 0.472 last year, or from 0.430 to 0.452 if government special transfers are taken into account. So it is understandable for the low-income to question if more of the same would really address the issue.
At a forum at the National University of Singapore (NUS) last Tuesday, economist and NUS assistant professor Chia Ngee Choon noted that the Government's targeted 30-per-cent increase in productivity over the next 10 years would probably be achieved only by the middle and upper class, and asked: "Does this tide of economic growth raise all boats? It may raise only those in the middle income and above." In other words, the opportunities may be there, but they will fall largely to the middle- and high-income.
If the strategies used in the past have not successfully addressed one of the most critical socio-economic issues facing Singapore, why then would more and more of the same lead to a different outcome this time?
I am not advocating the wholesale abandonment of our existing economic model. But surely it is time for a fresh think about how to address the widening income gap.
For starters, the way we characterise and think about a stronger social safety net has to change. I am not calling for a Nordic-style cradle-to-grave social welfare system, or for the Government to use generous benefits backed by punitive taxes to equalise incomes across society.
But we have the room and resources for institutionalised social welfare measures to ensure a minimal standard of living reasonably commensurate with our overall developmental status as a society.
Anything beyond that minimal level should not be based on entitlement, but must instead result from the opportunities that the Finance Minister talked about, which we have to work hard to keep open to all. Entitlements and opportunities do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Some will argue that this would represent a dangerous first step down a slippery slope of ever-shriller calls for increased benefits. But this argument implies a willingness to disregard the suffering of our less-fortunate brethren, simply because of a theoretical risk that our Government cannot resist public pressure.
We can also mitigate any such "slippery slope" risk by funding such measures through a substantially-funded endowment fund, and topping up the fund only when resources are available - much like what is being done with the ElderCare and Comcare funds, as well as the National Research Fund.
The Government had, in its National Report for the United Nations' Universal Periodic Review process submitted recently, affirmed that "Singapore fully subscribes to the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)".
The UDHR provides for everyone to have the rights to social security and an adequate standard of living. But the latest Budget measures fall short of those commitments.
Government surveys have found that a four-person household needs about S$1,700 per month to cover basic costs of living, according to Professor Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Yet statistics show many low-income households in Singapore fall below this threshold, and there were no Budget measures to specifically rectify this.
Ad hoc transfers like the one-off "Grow and Share" package in this year's Budget fall short of what our commitment to the UDHR requires, depending as they do on the existence of surpluses and the discretion and generosity of the government of the day.
In his New Year message at the start of this year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong identified the widening income gap as a key concern to tackle. The lack of fresh ideas in the Budget statement was therefore disappointing. Hopefully this will change after the Budget debate that starts today.
Siew Kum Hong is a corporate counsel and the vice-president of MARUAH (Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, Singapore), a human rights NGO and gazetted political association.
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