It’s official: Hong Kong government figures in last poverty report show more people becoming impoverished
Poverty Commission to release report showing that the proportion of poor people increased slightly last year, prompting calls for new government approach to problem
The number of impoverished Hongkongers is still on the rise despite the government’s efforts to ease the problem, a report to be released at Saturday’s Poverty Summit shows.
The Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report 2015, the last study to be unveiled by the current administration, is also regarded as an assessment of the performance of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, who placed particular emphasis on fighting poverty in his election manifesto four years ago.
Sources close to the commission said the city’s population of poor people – based on those whose household income falls below the median income according to household size – will see a spike of 20,000 to 1.345 million in 2015 from the year before, with a slight increase from 19.6 per cent to 19.7 per cent.
After taking government welfare into account, the total population dropped to 971,000, which is still 9,000 more than in 2014.
