How to eradicate poverty in Singapore

[arthur]

I for one, do not want my children or descendants to live on this island proclaimed as among the richest city in the world and yet, have families living on $5 daily per member. And have a $5 CHALLENGE somemore!!!

Brain drain anyone??

This just incentivise the brightest to migrate. Quitters some say. Wise choice I call them.

[Temperament]

According to the Department of Statistics, 105,000 families in Singapore are earning on average $1,500 or less per month. This means that life is a daily struggle for some 387,000 Singapore citizens and permanent residents. After paying utilities, schooling, housing rental or loan instalments and medicals, they are left with about $5 a day for food and transport per family member. How do they do it? Can they? How does it feel to be their shoes? Whatever you think or feel, suspend your disbelief or judgement and find out for yourself!

The $5 Challenge is on!

What is it, you ask? We want you to try limiting your food and transport expenses to $5 a day. (It’s time to catch that free MRT ride every morning!)

Why $5?

Figures from the Household Expenditure Survey of 2007/08 show that for households at the bottom fifth of income levels, each member spent 25.9% and 8.8% of his or her total monthly expenditure on food and transport respectively.

According to the Key Household Income Trends for last year, each member of the bottom 10% of households earned an average of $410 per month excluding employer’s CPF contributions. This works out, per person, to about $3.54 per day on food and $1.20 per day on transport. Rounded up this adds up to $5 a day for food and transport.

We're heartened to see some of you committing up to a month to this! Why not challenge your friends or colleagues to do this too? You could do it together -- it's likely be easier!

Take the $5 Challenge here: http://sgagainstpoverty.org/5-dollar-challenge/

Must be mad or something!
"Seow Liu", says in Hokkien.
A plate of Char Kway Teow at any HDB Food Centre cost $3 already.
Can't buy a plate of seafood hor fund liu. Cost $4.0
"SEOW LIU"
And we are the first World Country! No?

[NTL]

1. Cycle to work
2. Prepare own meals

Should be able to meet $5/day

[yeokiwi]

According to the Department of Statistics, 105,000 families in Singapore are earning on average $1,500 or less per month. This means that life is a daily struggle for some 387,000 Singapore citizens and permanent residents. After paying utilities, schooling, housing rental or loan instalments and medicals, they are left with about $5 a day for food and transport per family member. How do they do it? Can they? How does it feel to be their shoes? Whatever you think or feel, suspend your disbelief or judgement and find out for yourself!

The $5 Challenge is on!

What is it, you ask? We want you to try limiting your food and transport expenses to $5 a day. (It’s time to catch that free MRT ride every morning!)

Why $5?

Figures from the Household Expenditure Survey of 2007/08 show that for households at the bottom fifth of income levels, each member spent 25.9% and 8.8% of his or her total monthly expenditure on food and transport respectively.

According to the Key Household Income Trends for last year, each member of the bottom 10% of households earned an average of $410 per month excluding employer’s CPF contributions. This works out, per person, to about $3.54 per day on food and $1.20 per day on transport. Rounded up this adds up to $5 a day for food and transport.

We're heartened to see some of you committing up to a month to this! Why not challenge your friends or colleagues to do this too? You could do it together -- it's likely be easier!

Take the $5 Challenge here: http://sgagainstpoverty.org/5-dollar-challenge/

http://www.singstat.gov.sg/Publications/...xpenditure

"Households" is the term used in the statistics, not "families". The meaning of both words is very different.

And take note of the following in the spreadsheet.


Note: The lowest 10% resident employed households have fewer working persons on average, a higher proportion of persons working part-time and a higher proportion of elderly persons aged 65 years and over. However, as the data cover only income from work, households could have income from non-work sources. In addition , not all households are consistently in the same decile group from one year to the next. For example, an employed household may move down from a higher decile in a particular year due to temporary unemployment of a household member, before moving up the deciles when the member resumes work in the subsequent year.


These 10% also contained
1) Retired singaporeans - no income
2) singaporeans that have income that is not tracked by IRAS
3) Temporary job loss of a working member of the households


Certainly, there are households that the $5 website is crying out, but not all the 10%. In fact, if I assume most retired couples/individuals have a HDB flat under their name(no big deal right since more than 90% of households are owned), those that are really in dire financial conditions does not form a big proportion of the 10%.

Statistics is like that. Just like Mark Twain had said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

[NTL]

2) singaporeans that have income that is not tracked by IRAS

This applies to all of us here!

[chialc88]

#1 If I need to live with $5 per day everyday in Singapore...
so be it.
I do not measure the amount of money we spent per day to whether I'm rich or poor.
If I have to live with $5 per day, I will find a way to do it.

#2 I will cry when I see people can not go to hospital because they have no money to pay the hospital bill.
I think that we human being should take care of one another...
especially when we are sick.
I don't care whether the patient is rich (like wearing Rolex) or poor (not wearing a watch), so long he is sick, he should enjoy basic healthcare services.
I will weep if I hear that this is happening here.

#3 I will feel sad when I know a child can not go to school because his family need him to be at home or working to help out the family.
I feel sad when a child wanted to study hard but his family/school aka environment in general does not allow him to focus/concentrate in his study.
I hope that we can create a better environment/a place to study for any child who wanted to learn.

As Some-one says, we need to help them... question is how far do we go?
Love Compassion