Hong Kong Welfare Minister Defends Dropping Poverty Line
Hızlı Bakış
- Hong Kong's welfare minister defended the government's decision to abandon the poverty line, calling it a limited statistical concept.
- He stated it failed to identify needy groups beyond low income, such as carers, and announced plans for a new commission on targeted poverty alleviation.
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Hong Kong's government decided to drop the poverty line as an indicator for allocating assistance, a move defended by the welfare minister as a limited statistical concept.
Hong Kong’s welfare minister has defended the government’s earlier decision to drop the poverty line as an indicator for allocating assistance, saying it was a limited “statistical concept” that failed to identify needy groups beyond those with low income, such as carers.
“The needs of carers are varied and they face many difficulties. We will look into the issue after we set up a new commission on targeted poverty alleviation,” he said.
This was in addition to the three existing groups – families living in subdivided flats, single-parent families and all-elderly households – identified by the Commission on Poverty in its report on the impact of the government’s targeted poverty alleviation strategy, released on Thursday.
“The biggest drawback is that it cannot tell you who is poor, what they need, or how we should help them. It cannot tell at all,” Sun, explaining why the poverty line had not been used in the new report.
He called the poverty line a “very statistical concept that is purely based on income and took no account of other things”.
Açık Sorular
- What specific criteria will the new commission use?
- When will the new commission be established?
