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.