Retirement policies in 2017 policy address fail on key objective – to provide Hong Kong’s elderly with peace of mind
A pension and peaceful retirement should be a civic right
After years of discussion and so-called consultation with academics and advisers, the latest batch of policy overhauls announced in the 2017 policy address on retirement protection and elderly care come as a disappointment.
The reasons are threefold. Forgoing a universal pension system, the government will instead add another tier to the Old Age Living Allowance. This means recipients whose assets are less than HK$144,000 will be eligible for a payout of HK$3,435 a month, HK$940 more than offered under the original system.
The asset limit for the allowance will also be raised from HK$225,000 to about HK$329,000 for elderly singletons and from HK$341,000 to HK$499,000 for elderly couples.
While the government has extended the old age allowance and raised the asset limit by a small margin, many of the city’s elderly will still fail to meet the asset requirements. Those who have assets slightly over the limit, for example, will be left unprotected.
The government will have thus failed to meet a key need and objective – to provide Hong Kong’s elderly residents with a stable source of income and peace of mind in retirement.
Secondly, the age of eligibility for the elderly’s Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) scheme will be raised from 60 to 65 to align with policy efforts to extend the city’s retirement age. The age of 65 is also the point at which residents can withdraw accrued benefits from their Mandatory Provident Fund savings.