25th anniversary of the return. Social Security | Poverty, Impersonal Issues, Government Needs Redistribution to Strengthen Social Safety Net

The 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the motherland is also when the SAR government is about to change its term. The Chief Executive, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, summed up the work results when chairing the last Poverty Alleviation Committee meeting in office on May 18, and mentioned that the current government’s recurrent social welfare expenditure has increased by 71% , the increase is the highest of any previous government.

However, the increase in social welfare expenditure does not mean the success of social security work. The "2020 Hong Kong Poverty Report" released last year still showed that the poverty rates before and after policy intervention reached 23.6% and 7.9% respectively, which shows that Hong Kong's road to poverty alleviation Block and long.

In fact, as early as the British colonial period, problems such as inequitable distribution of wealth and insufficient social security existed in Hong Kong. Although the British Hong Kong government once vigorously developed public housing and built a minimum social safety net, it had no intention of deepening any social safety net before the handover. The welfare reform has not established a universal retirement protection system, but has pursued the concept of "active non-intervention" and allowed the business sector to dominate relevant policies.

Even after the return, the thinking of "small government" has not changed much, and the perception that "capitalism is difficult to have no gap between the rich and the poor" is also deeply ingrained, resulting in the riddled social safety net far behind the times.

Can the fighting spirit of "Under the Lion Rock" be able to create a new destiny?

"25th Anniversary of the Return of Hong Kong" In-depth Report Series

In Hong Kong, the disparity between the rich and the poor and income inequality are getting worse.

(Photo by O Jiale)

Hong Kong British advocates that poverty is only a personal problem

Looking back at the social security policies of the past 25 years, Huang Heping, director-general of policy research and advocacy of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS), believes that measures such as the "Working Family Allowance" introduced by the Hong Kong government in recent years have "started from nothing". It has broken some poverty alleviation myths; however, although the poverty report shows that government welfare measures seem to be quite effective in poverty alleviation, the overall concept of social welfare has not been fundamentally reversed. suspected.

Since the 1960s, Hong Kong has continued to discuss issues such as building social security and people's life safety net, but the government has not seen much commitment.

For example, the British Hong Kong government published the White Paper on Social Welfare Objectives and Policies in Hong Kong in 1965, proposing that poverty is a "personal issue" and advocating the traditional concept of Chinese people's old-age care.

Although two years later, a British economist submitted a report recommending the gradual implementation of the social insurance system, but due to the political instability at that time and the uncertainty of Hong Kong's future, the British Hong Kong government finally only introduced the "surplus social welfare model" in 1971, which gradually evolved into "CSSA", which provides income supplements for people who cannot support themselves financially; "Disability Allowance" was introduced two years later, and later evolved into "Old Age Allowance" and "Disability Allowance", with no means test and no contribution. In 2013, the “Ordinary Old Age Living Allowance” and the “Higher Old Age Living Allowance”, which are subject to an asset test, will be added to the elderly and disabled persons in the form of cash allowances. Old Age Living Allowance".

These various "aids" and "subsidies" constitute the most important social safety net in Hong Kong today (

), serving more than one million people in need.

However, these "aids" and "subsidies" have always been criticized by the society as not being sufficient, because many programs need to undergo rigorous eligibility checks, and the complicated approval procedures have also discouraged many recipients, so they fail to cover more There are people in need, especially many poor and lonely elderly people.

However, although there have long been voices in the society calling for the authorities to comprehensively simplify the social safety net and establish a universal retirement security system without review, the authorities often use these "aid" and "subsidy" schemes as a reason to prevaricate social demands and are unwilling to undertake greater responsibility.

Various "aids" and "subsidies" constitute the most important social safety net in Hong Kong today, serving more than one million people in need.

(Screenshot of Social Welfare Department website)

Capitalist governments also need to play a distributive role

Regarding the issue of elderly care, the last Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten published a consultation document "Secured life can be enjoyed in old age - Hong Kong's old-age pension plan" as early as 1994.

Over the years since the handover, the SAR government's attitude towards retirement protection is still unclear.

In 2004, the Joint for Universal Retirement Security (Joint) proposed a universal pension scheme with contributions from the government, employers and individuals and an increase in all corporate profits tax; In 2014, Zhou Yongxin, an emeritus professor of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration of the University of Hong Kong, was entrusted by the then Chief Secretary for Administration, Carrie Lam, to publish a research report and proposed a universal old-age pension scheme, which was later improved to Relying solely on government contributions; in 2015, the Poverty Alleviation Committee proposed an old-age pension plan in a public consultation document; in 2016, more than 180 scholars based on the improvement plan of Zhou Yongxin’s team and the latest statistical data, formulated a financial situation that can last until 2064. year's plan.

At that time, the universal retirement plan was roughly divided into two categories.

Whenever the government compares and discusses various options, it always makes excuses such as "fiscal sustainability", "non-intervention in the free market", "small government and big society".

Huang Heping said that in the capitalist system, many resources can be distributed through the free market, but it is absolutely impossible to rely on the free market distribution alone, and the government must intervene to make the system work better.

"Is there really equal competition in the free market? This itself is very questionable. While maintaining the free market, the society also needs some welfare measures to maintain the interests of different classes and ensure that everyone can live and work in peace and contentment." Huang Heping It is emphasized that in countries or regions where the capitalist system is implemented, the government still needs to play the role of secondary distribution, so that the grassroots can maintain a reasonable standard of living, which in turn can prove the legitimacy of the system itself.

Whenever talking about the social security system, there will be voices against strengthening welfare measures on the grounds that Hong Kong is a free economy with a low tax system, but this logic does not hold true for Huang Heping.

Huang Heping pointed out that, on the one hand, although many high-welfare countries in northern Europe are also accompanied by high tax systems, many regions also have social insurance systems in addition to "censored social assistance" and "universal social allowances". The main purpose is to share and resist risks caused by environmental or personal changes, such as disease, unemployment, old age, etc., and advocate multi-party contributions by employees, employers and the government; on the other hand, in the past, the government could rely on family or relatives The traditional Chinese concept of escaping social responsibility, but now the family structure and interpersonal relationship have changed greatly, and the outdated concept of welfare can no longer keep up with the pace of the times.

Huang Heping said that the government will change the concept of certain items, creating the illusion that the poverty alleviation effect is very good.

(Photo by Chen Weici)

Addicted to digital games, forgetting the original intention of social welfare

It is true that the Hong Kong government has not done nothing in its poverty alleviation strategy. In the poverty report released every year, the government will announce the poverty alleviation results.

However, in the absence of a comprehensive social security safety net, non-permanent welfare benefits are only minor repairs and cannot fundamentally improve the poverty and income structure of grassroots citizens.

Huang Heping said the government would blur the concept of some poverty alleviation measures, confusing a real social security system with a one-time cash benefit.

For example, the government's definition of "poor people" is nuanced.

In the "Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report 2017", when calculating the number of poor households, the poor population and the poverty rate after the policy intervention, the government will take into account the changes in the figures after the policy intervention, including regular cash, regular and non-constant Cash, regular cash and non-cash benefits; however, in the 2020 Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report, the government simply included “all selected items” in the post-policy intervention when calculating changes in the poor population and poverty rate from 2009 to 2020. The effect of poverty alleviation has blurred the concept.

He emphasized that only the regular cash benefit is a social security system in the strict sense, and its poverty alleviation effect is the most worthy of reference.

Second, the government is accustomed to changing concepts in certain names, giving people the illusion that poverty alleviation has achieved good results.

For example, in the 2020 Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report, page 13, when the government used a graph to show the estimated average per-household benefit transfers for all selected projects from 2009 to 2020, it showed that non-permanent cash benefits accounted for 53% in 2020 The government even directly stated that "the overall poverty alleviation effect of non-permanent cash projects has increased significantly, and the individual poverty alleviation effect of distributing 10,000 yuan in cash alone has reached 3.8 percentage points in 2020."

Huang Heping questioned the accuracy of the concept of non-permanent cash benefits included in poverty alleviation. "In recent years, due to the epidemic, the government has distributed significantly more non-permanent benefits such as consumer coupons than in the past, but counting these as poverty alleviation measures is a Unreasonable, this still deviates from the real poverty alleviation.” He also pointed out that welfare such as consumer coupons will also increase consumption and benefit businesses to a certain extent. to the fundamental poverty alleviation effect.

In the "2020 Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report", when the government calculated the changes in the poor population and poverty rate from 2009 to 2020, it simply included "all selected projects" in the poverty alleviation effect after policy intervention, which obscured the concept.

(Screenshot of "Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report 2020")

Citizens can't rest easy when their spending doubles

It is undeniable that there are no statistical lies when the government announces the results, but the words packaged in the numbers game make these "honest" figures tell a "false" narrative of poverty alleviation.

When Carrie Lam chaired the last meeting of the Poverty Alleviation Committee of the current government, he mentioned that the recurrent expenditure on social welfare has risen by 71% since taking office, the highest of any previous government.

When the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Law Chi-kwong, published his last blog post on Sunday (June 26), "The Third Wave of Increase in Social Welfare Expenditure in Hong Kong", he even listed the expenditure figures of the Social Welfare Department of the previous governments since the handover to force the This proves that the current government's Social Welfare Department expenditure has increased by 57.2% (

), which is the highest in the past.

Huang Heping has been concerned about social security issues for many years. He vaguely remembers that when he first joined the HKCSS about fifteen years ago, the government's regular social welfare expenditures were only CSSA, fruit allowance and disability allowance.

According to the standards published by the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council in 2007, a single able-bodied adult could receive a standard monthly payment of $1,630, the High Old Age Allowance was $705, and the High Disability Allowance was $2,280.

Over the years, the government has gradually increased social security programs, and grassroots citizens can indeed receive more types of government subsidies.

But he believes that the so-called large increase "is just because the base was too low, so now a little increase can be regarded as an achievement. However, compared with overseas, social welfare expenditure in Hong Kong is still low."

Law Zhiguang wrote in a blog last year that the number of active households under the WFA scheme has more than doubled. In terms of regular cash benefits, WFA is the third most effective poverty alleviation policy after CSSA and Longevity Allowance.

As Huang Heping said, compared to the previous low starting point, the Hong Kong government is indeed not without an inch on the road to poverty alleviation.

However, it is undeniable that the existing poverty alleviation policies still have many problems, such as incomplete coverage, lack of review of the amount, and lack of universality.

Taking a step back, under the current system, even if social welfare expenditure increases or even doubles, will the living security of the citizens be assured?

Taking CSSA as an example, the community generally believes that the amount of CSSA has long been out of touch with the current Hong Kong society.

The current "basket" base of the CSSA standard payment has remained at the level of 1996, which has remained unchanged in the past 26 years. Hong Kong's average income, inflation and price levels have long since changed.

In 1996, the Government set the CSSA amount based on the "estimated expenditure for basic needs" standard and the household expenditure survey. That is to say, the level of CSSA is linked to the concept of "absolute poverty".

Law Chi-kwong cited figures on the expenditure of the Social Welfare Department of the successive governments since the handover, proving that the expenditure of the Social Welfare Department of the current government has increased by 57.2%.

(Screenshot of Luo Zhiguang's blog)

Existing poverty alleviation policies are full of loopholes

In the 2020 survey conducted by the CSSA Low Income Alliance (CSSA-related), 70% of the respondents wanted the government to conduct a comprehensive review of the CSSA system, but there is still no timetable for the CSSA review.

Huang Heping and Ouyang Dachu, Assistant Professor of the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at Lingnan University, co-authored the book "Unfinished Social Security in Hong Kong: An Introduction to Criticism". The amount of aid lags behind social development, and the review will inevitably bring upward pressure, and draw on the government's claim that the CSSA is financially sustainable, and will put pressure on market wages."

Over the past two years, many industries have been hit hard, causing the unemployment rate to hit record highs again and again. The government has provided no other assistance except for temporary unemployment support under the "Sixth Round of Epidemic Prevention and Anti-epidemic Fund".

Huang Heping assumes that if a middle-class person loses his job, he will not receive regular cash benefits such as CSSA immediately, but will have to consume almost all his assets before he is eligible to receive CSSA.

It can be seen that, as an important part of the social security safety net, the effectiveness of CSSA is not ideal, and Hong Kong also lacks a regular and public unemployment assistance system.

Huang Heping criticized that before and after the reunification, the government's concept of social welfare has not changed in essence. Under the former social security system, a small number of grassroots citizens may not be able to survive. Now there has been slight progress, but the overall concept is still to advocate citizens Mainly relying on themselves or their family members, they can only be eligible to apply for government subsidies when they are desperate and desperate, and can maintain a basic living condition through government assistance, not to mention a good standard of living. "It's just short-term support. What if I can't find a job?"

However, even with so many problems, the coverage of the CSSA system is still incomplete.

According to the report "Awareness and Use of Social Welfare by Households in Subdivided Housing" released by the HKCSS in January this year, 50.6% of eligible households in subdivided housing did not apply for CSSA, and 52.7% did not apply for occupational allowance.

Talking about the reasons why these families did not apply, Huang Heping concluded that it was simply because the households in subdivided housing did not have enough knowledge of social welfare information and the application procedures were cumbersome. There were also eligible households who were worried about the "tag effect" that would affect their families after applying for CSSA. reputation.

One can't help but wonder, does this layer of social safety net really exist?

As an international affluent metropolis, Hong Kong has a huge disparity between the rich and the poor visible to the naked eye. For the poor, especially the poor elderly and the disabled, the government has the responsibility to intervene to ensure that they maintain a dignified life.

Twenty-five years after the return of Hong Kong, the pace of poverty alleviation has been slow and difficult. How can the new government team led by Li Jiachao continue to stand idly by?

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Social Security | Poverty, Impersonal Issues, Government Needs Redistribution to Strengthen Social Safety Net