The issue of poverty is a very sensitive one in one of the world’s richest city state with the highest percentage of millionaires. How can there be poverty when there are no beggars, or the poor here are better off than the poor elsewhere? How then does one define poverty or being poor? Theoretically, a person with a $1000 pm income could buy a 2 rm public flat. How can that be poor? The assumptions that after paying for the flat he would still have enough to get by, feed a family and children going to school. If this is the bottom line, the number of poor in Singapore must be very low indeed.
Professor Tommy Koh wrote a recent article stating that 30% of the population are poor. He is now embroiled in a debate with the MOE on the scale of poverty among students. Though the data quoted were complex and not everyone is in agreement, the bottom line is that how many are poor or living below the poverty line.
The next question is where is the poverty line? In Singapore there is no poverty line. So how can there be poor when there is no poverty line. Tiok. The next question, why is there no poverty line? The answer and I quote, ‘Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing had previously refused to define an official poverty line for fear of a "cliff effect" even though it is not known what this meant.’
If you choose to put on blinkers, the world is a tunnel. If one chooses to read only fairy tales, the world is so airy fairy. Are there people struggling to live on their small income and bordering on poverty or living below the poverty line? Deaf frogs, blind frogs or blinkered frogs, all have a different view on this issue.
Chua Chin Leng AKA RedBean
*The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.sg/