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1. • CommentAuthorkelvinq
   • CommentTimeMar 11th 2008

    # 1
   Does it exists?
   
   Of course. But who are they? Where are they? Why are they poor? Can we help them?
   
   Are our current policies making the poor poorer or are they indeed making fundamental improvements to their lives?
2. • CommentAuthorGuest
   • CommentTimeMar 12th 2008

    # 2
   Guest:
   
   The term 'poverty' is ambiguous. How can we measure or determine poverty?
3. • CommentAuthorjoelfirenze
   • CommentTimeMar 12th 2008

    # 3
   I think for the case of Singapore we could use relative measurements of poverty, or a section of society that is earning less than a certain amount per month/year. These definitions aside, there are certainly that group of people who are barely surviving in our era of high-cost living.
   
   These things aside, I am of the opinion that our policies are merely piecemeal efforts to allow them to survive. To alleviate poverty in Singapore from a systemic point of view is really that harder, since it would entail a more holistic perspective in terms of looking at education and empowerment opportunities that will allow families to stand on their own two feet.
4. • CommentAuthorkelvinq
   • CommentTimeMar 12th 2008

    # 4
   Guest, you asked a good question!
   
   And I reminds me of an article by Roger Milton in AsiaWeek. "The Online Citizen" is now carrying the article - For Richer Or Poorer. Here are some quotes -
   
   

   Trade and Industry Minister George Yeo presented a raft of numbers in parliament to show that Singapore’s poor really were not so poor after all. “The standard of living among the lower income has gone up,” said Yeo. Nearly all had televisions and telephones, on average they had about $11,500 in the state retirement fund (CPF), and all but a quarter lived in 3-room or larger flats. “In other words, many in the bottom 10% have significant wealth in the form of CPF savings and their homes,” added Yeo. “They are not an underclass.”

   
   
   

   Explains academic Asher: “Singapore does not believe in redistribution of wealth. Instead, it always wants high rates of growth to reduce poverty levels.”

   
   
   Which still doesn't say anything about how poverty is defined. Does anyone here have more clues?
5. • CommentAuthorAdam
   • CommentTimeMar 13th 2008

    # 5
   Thanks kelvinq (guest was me).
   
   The numbers are deceiving. The concern is not with the statistics of lower-income group, but rather the group of people who has income lower than the poverty threshold. statistics like the "CPF fund" and "a quarter lived in 3-room or larger flats" are of little meaning since we can always lump up the more of the statistics of the lower income citizens in order to have a better figures.
   
   this is a good place to read up more on poverty http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,menuPK:336998~pagePK:149018~piPK:149093~theSitePK:336992,00.html
   
   Personally i do not believe in redistribution of wealth as the primary form of solution to the poverty. It will probably alleviate the situation, but the undesirable state will surface systematically again.
6. • CommentAuthorsubmersiblehelicoptr
   • CommentTimeMar 13th 2008

    # 6
   Whilst I was serving my NS, I had the chance to stare at the results of Singapore's poverty right in my face.
   
   I repeatedly had in interview the "left behind" in Singapore. Their stories are still with me even now.
   
   A typical drug addicts' path to self destruction begins at home. With a broken family, no figures of moral authority in their life, dismissal from everyone who knows him/her, the circumstances in which he lives in are appalling. In face of a bleak future and an ever growing burden of problems, he starts to "shoot up" as a means of escaping the trap of his life.
   
   Statistics are an opaque way to see poverty. To be unoriginal, it attempts to capture the graphic nature of reality in numbers. And most of the time, it is underwhelming in it's ability to communicate the intangibles of reality.
   
   Poverty is more than just homeless, destitute, or starving people. Poverty is a trap from which it is nigh impossible to escape from without a helping hand.
   
   Never seen poverty before? I fairly certain that a effort to go out and film, photograph and blog about issue would raise significantly more awareness of the issue.
   
   http://aussgworldpolitics.wordpress.com/2007/08/09/nation-builders-of-singapore-a-documentary-on-the-forgotten-elderly/
   A documentary on the poor in Singapore.
   
   http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/wan/604588163.html
   Though not the person is not in Singapore, this post rather clearly illustrates what a helping hand is.
7. • CommentAuthorjoelfirenze
   • CommentTimeMar 13th 2008

    # 7
   I think that we also need to move on from awareness. The poor are among us. No doubt about that. But we need to know where they are in order to reach out to them, to work with them on what they need. We need tools for sustainable action, as well as for awareness.
8. • CommentAuthorkelvinq
   • CommentTimeMar 14th 2008

    # 8
   Joel, do you have some suggestions?
   
   I tend to think that more awareness is needed. I may be biased but I think that many Singaporeans, especially those who are doing well financially, are completely oblivious to poverty in Singapore.
9. • CommentAuthorjoelfirenze
   • CommentTimeMar 14th 2008

    # 9
   I don't think you are biased, I agree with you. Some people who come from more privileged backgrounds really have no clue to the extent of poverty in Singapore. I think there might be a software solution to this problem. If the information is readily accessible and easy to understand, then the barriers for action might be lowered.
10. • CommentAuthorkelvinq
    • CommentTimeMar 15th 2008

     # 10
    Joel,
    
    How does software solve the issue of the young kid, Wee Shu Min, from RJC? Let me quote her -
    
    

    i am inclined - too much, perhaps - to dismiss such people as crackpots. stupid crackpots. the sadder class. too often singaporeans - both the neighborhood poor and the red-taloned socialites - kid themselves into believing that our society, like most others, is compartmentalized by breeding. ridiculous. we are a tyranny of the capable and the clever, and the only other class is the complement.
    
    ...
    
    it's only sad when people who could be winners are marginalised and oppressed. is dear derek starving? has dear derek been denied an education? has dear derek been forced into child prostitution? has dear derek had his clan massacred by the government?
    
    i should think not. dear derek is one of many wretched, undermotivated, overassuming leeches in our country, and in this world. one of those who would prefer to be unemployed and wax lyrical about how his myriad talents are being abandoned for the foreigner's, instead of earning a decent, stable living as a sales assistant. it's not even about being a road sweeper. these shitbags don't want anything without "manager" and a name card.
    
    please, get out of my elite uncaring face.

    
    Let us be careful not to let this debate spiral into another one revolving around "Elitism". This is about poverty and it's about taking action to resolve it.
11. • CommentAuthorsubmersiblehelicoptr
    • CommentTimeMar 15th 2008

     # 11
    Let's reserve the elitism argument for another thread.
    
    I can't speak for Singapore in general, but I can speak for myself. I come from a upper-middle class Singaporean family. This translates in to not having to worry too much about monetary issues. I got the opportunity to travel overseas alot and see issues from an international perspective. I'm serious when I say that I know more about what happens internationally than in Singapore. My life consisted of school, home and the internet.
    
    Thing is, I had no idea that there was a poverty trap in Singapore, our "urban poor". If I was not of the issue, if I had never seen it with my own eyes, I'd probably not be doing anything serious about combating our poverty here.
    
    Here's an idea.
    
    We like to have conferences on combating poverty in developing countries. Debates about aid, corruption and all that jazz. Why not have a conference on Singaporean Poverty? It would open eyes and provoke the kind of discussion that would generate the impetus for change in Singapore. It would bring together artists, filmmakers who can help drive home the issue, academics and social workers to tackle the issue in their own respective sphere's of influence. Sorta like a TED themed on Singaporean Poverty.
12. • CommentAuthorGuest
    • CommentTimeMar 15th 2008

     # 12
    Guest:
    
    Guest:
    
    One dimension is income
    
    Here's some clues on income statistics...
    
    Uniquely Singapore – F1 or F9: Income statistics?
    
    Posted by theonlinecitizen on February 13, 2008
    
    By Leong Sze Hian
    
    I refer to the article “Economic growth key to dealing with rising costs: PM: He says incomes must rise more than inflation, and growth means more income” (ST, Feb 9).
    
    It states that “Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong reiterated that while measures can be taken to deal with rising living costs, the way to deal with the issue was by growing the economy so that real incomes rise more than inflation.
    
    He said on Thursday that when the economy grew by 7.5 per cent last year, incomes did not just rise at the top end, but across the board. ‘Even (at) the bottom, the middle, everybody’s real income went up’”.
    
    In this connection, I would like to refer to various statistics available, for various available time periods, in respect of median monthly incomes (full-time and part-time), median monthly incomes (full-time), median monthly incomes for part-timers, household income, average incomes, private homes versus public flats incomes, etc.
    
    Although the median gross monthly income of full-time employed residents has grown 2.9 per cent a year in the past decade to $2,040 as of June 2006, the number of part-timers has more than doubled over the decade from 51,400 to 112,300, expanding their share of employment from 3.5 per cent to 6.3 per cent.
    
    The median monthly income for all employed residents (full-time and part-time) stagnated at $2,000 for the years 2001 to 2004.
    
    Income grew by only $40 to $2,040, from 2001 to 2006, or 0.4 per cent per annum. Income growth may have been negative, after adjusting for inflation for the last five years.
    
    In January 2008, the Minister of Health, in moving for the implementation of means testing starting at the median income cited the figure of $2,170 for full-time employed residents.
    
    However, the median income for full-time employed residents may not be the same as that for employed residents (full-time and part-time) cited in previous statistics.
    
    Even if we discount any such differences, does this means that the median wage growth from 2001 to 2007, was only 1.4 per cent per annum?
    
    Also, the incomes of about 30 per cent of households at the bottom have not caught up with inflation, and have declined in inflation-adjusted terms from 2000 to 2005.
    
    According to the Minister of State for Trade and Industry’s (Mr Lee Yi Shyan) maiden speech in Parliament in November 2006, “the monthly income of the lowest paid group declined between 2000 and 2005. At the household level, between 1990 and 2005, households in the lowest 20% actually saw their household income decline over the same period between 2000 and 2005”.
    
    The median monthly income for part-timers is still the same at $500 compared to 10 years ago.
    
    In view of the 118 per cent increase in part-timers for the last decade, more residents are working for an income of $500 that has not changed for 10 years.
    
    Although ‘average incomes rose overall by 1.1 per cent a year’ (from 1998 to 2003), perhaps a more significant statistic is the median income, as this, at the 50th percentile, would reflect whether the bottom 50 per cent of the population are better or worse off.
    
    The ‘% Change Per Annum - Average Monthly Household Income By Quintile, 1998 and 2003?, was -0.6 per cent and zero per cent respectively for the second and third quintile.
    
    Does this mean that incomes did not increase for about 50 per cent of households? In this connection, the percentage share of households with no working persons increased from 4.5 per cent in 1998 to 7.4 per cent in 2003.
    
    While the household income of those living in private homes grew, those in public flats fell by 0.4 per cent per annum, from $3,860 in 1998 to $3,790 in 2003. Since about 88 per cent of the population live in public flats, does this mean that the majority of Singaporeans were worse off?
    
    In contrast, according to the HDB Household Survey, ‘average household income of HDB flat dwellers rose from $3,719 to $4,238 a month’.
    
    How is it possible that the Department of Statistics Household Survey differs so markedly from the HDB Household Survey for apparently the same period, for such a crucial statistic?
    
    I would like to point out that when different data for different time periods are made available, it may make any income data analysis, extremely difficult, and thus, harder to draw conclusions on whether and to what extent, what groups of Singaporeans are better or worse of, as a reflection of economic growth, wage growth and inflation.
    
    Perhaps the increase in the number of pawnshops by almost 40 per cent over the last 5 years, and the increase in pawnshop loans from $1.26 billion in 2003, to $1.57 billion in 2006, may provide an alternative indication of how Singaporeans may be coping with the rising cost of living, vis-à-vis their income.
    
    ——————–
    
    In the article “Govt taking steps to narrow income gap”, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew spoke about the government’s plans to close the income gap.
    (ST, Feb 2).
    
    The following is a point-by-point rebuttal :-
    
    “To help shrink the gap, Mr Lee listed various measures the Government had taken to raise the salaries of the lower-income, such as skills upgrading and job redesign.”
    
    The wages of the bottom 30 per cent of workers have been declining since 2000
    and the number of low-wage workers keep increasing. “Wage inequality in Singapore is the highest by far compared with all OECD countries” (BT, Feb 2).
    
    “Then we’re making up with Workfare and other supplements.”
    
    106,000 lower-income self-employed have dropped out of Workfare after just 1 year.
    
    “The Government’s home ownership policy, adding that newly-weds receive grants of up to $ 40,000 to $ 50,000 to start off, and HDB flats had risen in value over the years”
    
    What’s the point of getting a $ 40,000 housing grant, when the price of a HDB flat increases by more than $ 40,000 ? And if you can’t pay, you lose your home, and maybe your CPF too. The HDB price index now, is still below it’s last high in 1996.
    
    “We’re topping up by giving them subsidies for the conservancy, the power, water, many different ways where expenditure is necessary and cannot be avoided”
    
    As charges keep going up, subsidies may not be keeping up with rising fees, especially when inflation has hit a 25-year high
    
    “However, he is not in favour of subsidising transport “because then you will have unnecessary travel””
    
    Subsidising travel is not free unlimited travel. So, how can there be “unnecessary travel” by lower-income people who are already finding it hard to make ends meet ?
    
    “The biggest problem, as Mr Lee saw it, is getting people to understand they are in charge of their own medical problems, weight and diet”
    
    How can people be “in charge of their own medical problems” ? No amount of healthy lifestyle can ensure no health problems. An example, is the Prime Minister who had cancer in his 40s.
    
    “The state topped up Medisave accounts to help people meet medical costs.”
    
    Small amounts of top-ups periodically that never seems to catch up with ever
    increasing medical costs, with healthcare inflation hitting 6.3 per cent in December 2007.
    
    Leong Sze Hian
13. • CommentAuthorGuest
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2008

     # 13
    Guest:
    
    The interesting thing about Singapore is that the city is so modern and compact you can't actually see who is poor / determine like a poverty stricken area unlike Malaysia. Income level is definitely a good measure but only for those who pay taxes but there might be people around the country who are earning money through other less mainstream means (like the aunty who walks around Bugis selling tissue paper packets) who will be left out of the statistical measurements.
    
    A better indication might be checking the list of citizens in the country against their taxes/CPF contributions. From there, we can find out who these real poverty stricken people missed out by the income statistics study are and reach out to them to understand what policies would help them better.
    
    Last year a professor who used to plan poverty alleviation strategies with the World Bank came to NUS to give a talk. She highlighted Malaysia as one of the success stories in implementing policies that reduced the poverty level from 70% to about 5%. Maybe there is something in that model which can be adapted to Singapore?
    
    Bitbot
14. • CommentAuthorAdam
    • CommentTimeMar 20th 2008

     # 14
    Why poverty exist in most societies, including those highly developed ones. Is poverty a systemic phenomenon due to the way we live our lives - capitalism, self-interest to maximize wealth, competition etc. If it is, we probably cannot solve the issue of poverty outright without changing the fundamental rules of life, the most we could do is to alleviate the negative side effects. If not, what is the real reason why poverty still exist in the civilisation of empathetic creatures which has reached a point of abundance?
15. • CommentAuthorkelvinq
    • CommentTimeMar 20th 2008

     # 15
    Bitbot,
    
    Your Professor with the World Bank might be referring to the New Economic Policy implemented in 1971. See -
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_New_Economic_Policy
    
    As a Singaporean, I may be ill-informed on this but I do know how controvesial this scheme is. I'm not so sure, with Singapore's racial composition and our policy for "racial harmony", that the NEP will rhyme very well with us.
    
    In fact, the NEP may be on its way out with, starting with Penang -
    
    "PENANG, March 11 (Bernama) -- Just a few hours after being sworn in as Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng Tuesday announced that the DAP-Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) coalition government will run its administration free from the New Economic Policy (NEP) which he claimed could breed cronyism, corruption and systemic inefficiency."
    
    http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news.php?id=319962
    
    Adam has once again put across the question very nicely -
    
    "If not, what is the real reason why poverty still exist in the civilisation of empathetic creatures which has reached a point of abundance?"
    http://interesthink.com/forum/?CommentID=84
    
    And - that's the real question in this thread. :)
16. • CommentAuthorterence
    • CommentTimeMay 25th 2008 edited

     # 16
    All policies are engineered towards getting high growth rates. This works fine as long as we are generating growth. However should the economy stagnate, we see the negative effects. So everyone should learn how to scale their personal growth accordingly. The economy is dynamic. Unfortunately more government policies tend to lock people in. Like a HDB, or job mobility.
    
    More importantly, is whether all aspects of society are growing at the same rate. We know that lower income groups are suppressed, and havent really grown at all. And we also know that high end incomes like bankers, ministers and senior executives have grown.
    
    The challenge here is when we see policies suitable for high income groups being applied to lower income groups. Type A go-getters are happy to be apart of the never ending increase costs and increase salaries. They are even able to increase salaries first then increase the costs.
    
    Type Z lower income groups may be happy with a paced life. By forcing them to join the race of spiraling cost/salaries increases might not always be possible.
    
    The result is an angry, impatient, ungracious society. We can only push this island so far with Singaporeans and even with foreigners.