Budget 2013: Elderly, lower-income families welcome help

Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam's budget speech on Monday was met with a generally positive reaction from Singaporeans.

In particular, the Budget's heavy focus on fighting income inequality and providing more support for lower-income families as well as the elderly drew good feedback from its beneficiaries, who said that some of their bread and butter issues would be alleviated by the new measures.

Elderly, lower income families

Retired seamstress Goh Ah Moi, 67, said that she was very happy that the Government would be providing subsidies of up to 80 per cent to defray the costs of daily consumerables like milk feeds, diapers as well as assistive devices like wheelchairs.

The existing Senior's Mobility Fund will be expanded into a Senior's Mobility and Enabling fund covering a wide range of medical assistive devices and topped up to $50 million. The ElderCare Fund will also be raised by $250 million to $3 billion this year to support patients tapping on subsidised nursing homes and other long-term care services.

"It sounds like it can really help us save a lot of money. I worry every day about how to afford Ensure for my husband, the cost of taking care of him keeps rising every month and I feel bad for our kids," said Mdm Goh in Mandarin. She takes care of her bed-ridden 75-year-old husband, who must be fed milk through a tube and supervised 24/7 since suffering a stroke four months ago.

"Maybe after this we can afford a wheelchair, and I can bring my husband out. He's been stuck at home for the past three months because we can't buy one."

Their two children earn only $1,500 and $1,800 doing odd-jobs and delivering goods and have been struggling with the cost of a domestic helper as well as occasional home nurse costs for their elderly father.

For grandmother Habsah Binte Hassan, 82, the one-off $200 top up to her CPF Medisave Account will help with her worries about affording medical treatment.

"I feel glad and relieved that I can save extra money," said Mdm Habsah, who recently had an eye operation and suffers from high-blood pressure.

The $500 she was receiving twice a year in her Medisave had been enough to cover the cost of treating her eyes but she was concerned about how she would afford medical treatment if her condition worsened, as her four children are all lower or lower-middle income earners with families of their own.

Families with young children, multi-generation households

Families with young children felt initiatives rolled out by DPM Tharman in the areas of pre-school education were a step in the right direction, but felt that more could still be done to help with rising costs of living.

“I think it’s good that the government will be spending so much more on the pre-school sector and expanding capacity, but this is something that should have already been done before to prevent the lack of places and rising costs of childcare,” said bank executive and father of two child-care going children Jason Chen, 34.

“I’m glad that they are acknowledging that there are these huge problems but I’m not grateful. Childcare is something the government needs to provide and support and I hope these promises are really kept.”

Chen’s reaction was to news that the Government would be doubling its expenditure on the pre-school sector over the next five years to over $3 billion as well as bringing in more operators into the childcare Anchor Operator Scheme with the aim of providing another 16,000 additional places by 2017.

Conservancy rebates were dismissed as one-off ‘angpows’ that would not go a long way in alleviating their financial burdens, but others noted that the reduction of levies on domestic helpers would definitely help.

“I can save at least $500 a year with the lower levy, and that’s really quite a lot as money is really tight,” said bank manager Foo Chern How, 42, who supports his wife, three children and two elderly parents, one of whom requires frequent medical assistance, on a $6,000 salary.

Families with children, elderly parents, or members with disabilities will pay $120 down from $170 with effect from March 2013, saving each of these households an average of $600 a year.

Entrepreneurs, business owners adopting cautious attitudes

IT Entrepreneur Mohamad Imran, 29, welcomed the Budget’s move to rely less on foreign labour and more on training schemes to boost Singapore's workforce.

“We believe that the Budget takes a pragmatic but positive stance, and we view the policies as largely positive, because while the labour supply for businesses will be restricted and wages will increase, there are measures to help businesses cope with these constraints while promoting Singaporean jobs,” said Mohamad.

However, while he saw the initial announcements as pro-business, he said that most industry players would adopt a wait-and-see attitude until actual details were released by the related ministries.

With additional reporting by Rahimah Rashith and Nurul Azliah