Going beyond Income Poverty in Singapore: Exploring Digital, Attention and Time Poverties

Summary

While there is no official poverty line in Singapore, the expansion of government support programmes for low-income individuals reflects an increasing poverty problem that has required government intervention. In 2007, Singapore introduced Workfare, with the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) and the Work Support Programme (WSP) as anchor income-support programmes. WIS gives older lowwage workers an automatic earnings supplement, whereas WSP was a means-tested programme for low-income households. Both programmes have since greatly expanded. For WIS, the income ceiling and payout amounts have been periodically revised, and the age eligibility will be lowered from thirty-five to thirty in 2023. WSP has evolved into ComCare Short-to-Medium-Term Assistance, and in the last three years it had an average annual disbursement of S$25.8 million. This represented a twofold increase from when it was first introduced in 2007. These two workfare programmes are in addition to the existing welfare support through public assistance (now referred to as ComCare Long-term Assistance), and they operate alongside the Progressive Wage Model (PWM), which sets minimum wages by sectors corresponding with skill ladders. Evidently, from initially catering only to the most needy who cannot work, Singapore's welfare system now includes a range of support programmes for low-earning individuals and households.

The persistence of poverty is unsurprising given global economic trends of technological-biased development and globalization that have combined to compress the wages of lower-skilled workers. As a small, globalized economy with a lean welfare system, the issue of low wages is especially challenging. In earlier papers, I have estimated that Singapore's incidence of poverty and low wages are relatively high compared with OECD economies. Given the trends, made worse by COVID-19, support for low-income households will need to expand on account of income poverty alone.

However, the support will be inadequate to lift Singaporean households out of poverty if we do not also take into account three forms of non-income poverty, which this chapter will discuss. First, digital resources have become necessities in today's world of technology; thus, tackling digital poverty needs to become a priority. I will argue the case for universal digital access. Second, I will discuss attention poverty, which my colleagues and I have found is more adversely experienced by people in financial need and parents of young children.