One-fifth of Hong Kong people live in poverty despite boom

from Earth Times

Hong Kong - It is one of the world's wealthiest cities, but more than one in five Hong Kong people live in poverty as the rich-poor gulf widens, according to a report published Monday. Despite its booming economy, more than 20 per cent of Hong Kong families - 1.33 million people - now live on monthly incomes of less than 900 US dollars for a two-person household and 1,500 US dollars for a four-person household, researchers found.

The number of people living in what welfare pressure group the Hong Kong Council of Social Services termed as poverty in its study has more than doubled from 630,000 in 1986 despite a population growth of only 25 per cent over that period.

Even though Hong Kong's economy is thriving with an 11 per cent rise in average earnings over the past five years, poor families with three or fewer members saw their income fall over the same period by between 6.4 and 8.5 per cent.

An increasing number of unskilled middle aged people have fallen below the poverty line along with 70 per cent of elderly people who live alone, council spokesman Chua Hoi-wai told the Hong Kong Standard newspaper which carried the survey findings Monday.

Welfare and labour groups in Hong Kong have for long campaigned for increased workers' rights and a minimum wage to protect the low-paid in the city of 6.9 million.

However, the government has repeatedly resisted the demands, saying that a minimum wage would lead to redundancies and adversely affect small companies in the business-oriented former British colony.