Update | For one working poor family, new subsidies don't go far enough
Speech leaves no doubt on Leung's priorities, but relief package for poor fails to impress one mother, and expert says it lacks cohesion
The advance spin made it abundantly clear - Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's policy address would focus heavily on the growing problem of poverty.
It certainly delivered in terms of time spent on the subject - almost half of the two-hour speech was devoted to the issue - and his blueprint wasn't short on concrete measures to help those most in need.
But one of the 710,000 people in line to benefit, mother-of-two Du Runxing, was left underwhelmed by the headline HK$3 billion subsidy for poor working class families. She described what will amount to a HK$2,600-a-month financial boost to her family of four as "better than nothing".
"We can only use it to pay for our children's extracurricular activities and buy more food. But that is it. The amount should be HK$4,000," she said, after watching the speech on television in her family's subdivided 100 sq ft Sham Shui Po flat.
Du, 39, who moved to Hong Kong from Zhaoqing in Guangdong three years ago, lives with her husband and two children and sleeps on the floor with one of the children. She said her husband made HK$10,000 a month as a security guard and they had been in the queue for public housing since 2009.
