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Following is a question by the Hon Albert Ho and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today (December 11):
Question:
The Commission on Poverty has drawn the poverty line, which is set at 50% of the median household income (median income) before government policy intervention (i.e. before tax and social benefits transfers). Moreover, according to the Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report 2012 released by the Government on September 28 this year, among the 430 000 poor households last year, over 150 000 were working-poor households. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) whether it has compiled statistics on the respective current numbers of households whose income is (i) below 50% of the median income, (ii) between 51% and 60% of the median income, and (iii) between 61% and 70% of the median income; if so, of the numbers, and a breakdown of the numbers of these three groups of households by the number of able-bodied children, disabled children and those with special educational needs in the family; and
(b) whether it will announce specific measures for poverty alleviation and the implementation timetable shortly; if it will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
My reply to the Hon Albert Ho's question is as follows:
(a) With household income before policy intervention (i.e. remove the impact of taxation and recurrent cash benefit transfer) as the basis for measurement, the poverty line is set at 50% of median household income by household size. If government intervention is disregarded, there were 541 000 households living under the poverty line in 2012. After taking into account taxation and government intervention of recurrent cash benefit transfers, there were 403 000 households living below the poverty line in 2012.
Adopting the above methodology, we have used household income before policy intervention as the basis of measurement in arriving at the thresholds of 60% and 70% of median household income by household size. The numbers of households in 2012 under each threshold were computed based on their income after taking into account taxation and government intervention of recurrent cash benefit transfers. These numbers, broken down by the number of members aged below 18 in household, are provided in Annex. Statistics with breakdown by the number of able-bodied children, children with disabilities and children with special educational needs in household are not available.
(b) We have received proposals from a number of groups and academics on how low-income working households not receiving Comprehensive Social Security Assistance should be further assisted. We will carefully consider these suggestions in formulating possible measures for poverty alleviation and will report progress in the Policy Address next year.
Ends/Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Issued at HKT 12:28
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