01 point of view
Written by: Review Editor
2020-04-13 06:00
Last update date: 2020-04-13 06:00The government announced a new round of anti-epidemic relief measures last Wednesday (8th), totaling more than 100 billion yuan. The main directions are job protection, assistance to designated industries, rent waivers, fees, and different assistance facilitated by the government. Focus on living and employment. However, the unemployment benefits that the society expects continue to fail, and the government once again refuses to establish unemployment protection with "difficult work", but the proposed alternative measures are weak, and there is no explanation why Hong Kong does not need to do so in the long run. If the Government wants to do its utmost to ride out the difficulties with the people, it must not ignore the needs of the unfortunately unemployed citizens.
Unemployment protection is again "shadowless"
The new crown pneumonia hit the economy. The Census and Statistics Department recently announced that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate from December last year to February this year was 3.7%, a new high since December 2010. Some scholars expect the unemployment rate to rise to more than 4% in the middle of the year. . The Hong Kong government announced on Wednesday that it will spend hundreds of billions of dollars. Among them, the “bright spot” is that the government will spend 80 billion yuan on “employment protection” to provide 50% of salary subsidies to employers who have made MPF contributions for employees, covering 1.5 million employees for a period of time. Half a year. In addition, the scheme will also support transport employers and employees who are not fully covered by the MPF scheme for catering, construction, and mainly taxi and red minibus drivers.
The government announced the second round of anti-epidemic and anti-epidemic fund measures totaling 137.5 billion yuan yesterday. (Profile picture)
This measure puts job security in the first place, but neglects to take care of the citizens who have taken the lead in unemployment recently. Chief Executive Lin Zheng Yuee said that after careful consideration, he believed that many people proposed that the establishment of short-term unemployment assistance is very difficult, and decided to relax the current asset limit for the unemployed to apply for the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme (CSSA). It is currently doubling to allow more unemployed people to apply, and the plan will last for six months.
"CSSA" is not enough to help the unemployed
The government continued to refuse to set up unemployment assistance for reasons similar to those pointed out by the former Labour and Fortune Commissioner Luo Zhiguang. Luo Zhiguang wrote a blog post at the end of February, pointing out that if a new unemployment assistance fund is to be established, it will involve a lot of administrative procedures, such as applicants need to submit proof of their basic identity and residential address, and previous employment and unemployment proof documents; It is also necessary to establish a new computer system, recruit personnel to process and approve applications, and establish a mechanism for disbursement of allowances. It is estimated that the amount of payments will not be released until 2021, and it is believed that "distant water cannot save a near fire." This time, the government has relaxed the restrictions on the application of assets by the unemployed. It also hopes to provide assistance to the unemployed more quickly.
However, the government's substitution of relaxing the threshold for unemployed people to apply for CSSA is obviously insufficient. First, even if the government doubles the asset limit, I believe it can only benefit low-income families. For example, the current asset limit for single people (sound adults) is only 33,000 yuan, even for a four-person family (members are sound adults / children), the amount is only 88,000 yuan, even if the two double to 66,000 and 88,000 Yuan, I believe many unemployed people and families are still easily exceeded. Even if the government points out that unemployed people who own property receive CSSA, the asset value of their own property for the first 12 months will not be counted, but it stands to reason that most property owners are unemployed even if they do not calculate the value of their own property. Its total assets still easily exceed the upper limit of CSSA applications. What's more, the CSSA payment is limited, and the standard amount for single adults who are under 65 years of age is only 2,525 yuan, even for low-income people, it is always a good salary.
In fact, the Hong Kong Government announced a number of livelihood measures in January, including those who plan to pay more than one month of unemployment through the Care Fund, and who received the working family allowance (working allowance) or various student subsidy schemes before April this year. A cash allowance of up to 3 months was issued, but later due to work complexity, a special allowance was provided to eligible households. Although the government is concerned about the needs of the unemployed, it is only willing to provide assistance to low-income families with greater economic needs. So far, the epidemic has erupted for a long time, and the unemployment situation in Hong Kong has sounded the alarm. The Hong Kong government is still only willing to provide minimum economic assistance to the unemployed. It is really disappointing to teach people. Is it important to stabilize employment?
Far water still matters
More importantly, Yuanshui may not be able to save the near fire, and does not mean that there is no long-term need for unemployment protection. Although unemployment protection policies are different in different parts of the world, many advanced places provide unemployed people with a subsidy equal to a certain percentage of their monthly salary. Hong Kong has so far only had CSSA with stringent asset requirements and a meagre amount of assistance. Luo Zhiguang once blamed the complicated problems in the Luozhong, which required serious discussion by the society, but no one has done so far. However, if the Hong Kong Government pays attention to the importance of setting up unemployment protection, is it not the responsibility of the Director of hundreds of thousands of monthly salaries to be actively studied?
The Government must face up to the needs of the unemployed already, even though they can use CSSA to relieve their difficulties in the short term, but the Government must actively expand the asset limits of the unemployed and increase the amount of subsidies provided to the unemployed. In the long run, the government cannot refrain from shirk its responsibility to study the establishment of unemployment protection, start relevant work as soon as possible, and prepare for the future economic deterioration.
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Unemployment rate epidemic prevention and anti-epidemic fund Luo Zhiguang Lin Zheng Yue'e 01 views