Forum highlights ‘new poverty’

from the Taipei Times

It’s time for the government to rethink its social security and immigration policy as the nation faces challenges such as “new poverty” and an increasing flow of immigrants through marriage, academics specializing in labor, social welfare and immigration issues told a forum in Taipei yesterday.

Wang Yung-tzu, a professor at National Taiwan Normal University’s (NTNU) Graduate Institute of Social work, pointed out that while poverty has always existed in Taiwan, rapid urbanization and interconnection in people’s economic lives have created a “new poverty” that needs to be dealt with differently.

“In the rapidly changing economic environment, people have developed different ideas on who is responsible for poverty,” Wang told the forum, which was organized by the Institute for National Policy Research and the Hsu Chao-ing Charity Foundation.

“In 1997, more than 50 percent of the people considered personal factors such as not working hard enough and spending too much money to be causes of poverty,” she said, citing figures from Academia Sinica.

Statistics also show that nearly 48 percent of people at the time believed “no employment opportunities” to be the cause of poverty — but the number increased to nearly 63 percent last year.

Meanwhile, more than 70 percent of people last year said that the government should work harder to create more job opportunities.

“This goes to show that when dealing with ‘new poverty,’ the government should not put responsibility completely on individuals and overlook social factors,” Wang said.

Saying that the government has not offered a complete social security system to help people escape poverty but only tried to hand out pensions, Cheng Li-chen, a social work professor at National Taiwan University, said that the government should quit its “patronizing” mentality and provide job training or assistance for families in poverty to participate in economic activities.

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Families living in poverty increased last year

from The Taipei Times

By Max Hirsch

The number of families living below the poverty line nationwide has skyrocketed to nearly 90,000, a new high since 1981 when figures were first compiled, the Ministry of the Interior said.

This year's figure of 86,700 low-income households nationwide marks a 4.29 percent increase in the number of poor families over 2005, the ministry said in a press release yesterday.

The 86,700 low-income households were home to 211,975 people, the release added.

The ministry's Department of Social Affairs spokesman Chen Chi-hsun (陳其勛) said in a telephone interview yesterday that the poverty line is defined as 60 percent of the average national monthly expenditure per family recorded in the previous year, with some qualifications factored in relating to ownership of personal assets and real estate.

The department cited two main factors for the increase.

"A natural increase and amendments to the Social Service and Rescue Law [社會救助法] are behind the changes," the release said. "The natural increase refers to the increase in the cost of living, which naturally drives up the number of low-income households."

The statement added that recent amendments to the Social Service and Rescue Law relaxed restrictions regarding the cut-off criteria in determining which families are living below the poverty line.

That is, the ministry is counting more households as "low-income" in order to make them eligible for government assistance, Chen said.

According to the ministry, the criteria for making such determinations is more liberal than in previous years, with "cross-border, single-parent, Aboriginal, elderly and other households that are often hard to define as living above or below the poverty level" receiving more help from the government in recent years.

Statistics released by the ministry suggested that the ranks of the poor are increasing in both rural and urban communities, with the highest number of impoverished people residing in Taitung County.

A total of 101,300 of the county's 230,000 registered residents live below the poverty line whereas in Taipei County, long considered the nation's most developed region, the number of families living below the poverty line has increased by 10 percent per year, with 10,963 families of the total 26,896 considered to be low-income.

The number of poor families there increased to 3,310 last year from 2,700 in 2005, it added, citing credit card debt and unemployment as chief factors for the rise.

The release added that, with a 20 percent yearly increase in the number of low-income families, Kao-hsiung County is home to the highest increase in such households.

75% Of Taiwan Office Workers Living In Poverty: Poll

from Yahoo News

Approximately 75 per cent of office workers in Taiwan are living in poverty, with many in debt because of decreasing earnings and rising consumer prices, according to the results of a survey released Tuesday by an online part-time and outsourced staffing service.

A total of 36 per cent of workers surveyed by the Jcase job Website said they are "very poor, " with another 38 per cent saying they are "poor."

While 22 per cent of respondents think their financial status is "average, " only 3.4 per cent said they are well-to-do or quite wealthy.

As many as 43 per cent of respondents attributed their poverty to their limited, even decreasing, income. Other reasons mentioned by those polled include the large number of expenses they have to cover and soaring consumer prices.

Asked to rate on a scale of 0-10 the level of agony they feel as a result of poverty, 74 per cent marked 6 or above, with 20 per cent giving the highest rating for their level of agony.

The average agony index of the respondents stands at 7.16.

The survey shows almost 57 per cent of the workers are in debt, with nearly 44 per cent shouldering credit card debt, 37 per cent burdened with housing debt and 1.7 per cent owing loansharks money.

It was found that 18 per cent of the workers are in deficit every month, almost 40 per cent only manage to make both ends meet and approximately 21 per cent have no more than NT$5,000 (US$153) left after deducting all expenses every month.

Those who have a surplus of more than NT$5,000 per month account for only a little more than 21 per cent.

In an effort to make extra income, approximately 40 per cent of office workers have a second job, while 57 per cent are planning to find one, according to the survey.

The survey was conducted between Nov. 20 and Dec. 10 on 5,028 office workers via online questionnaires, with the margin of error registering plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.