Poverty line is limited marker, Hong Kong minister says, as aid focus expands to carers
Welfare chief pledges to look at carers’ needs after Hong Kong’s Commission on Poverty reveals new 21-indicator strategy to identify vulnerable groups
Hong Kong’s welfare minister has defended the government’s decision to drop the poverty line as an indicator for allocating assistance, saying it was a limited “statistical concept” that had failed to identify needy groups beyond those with low incomes, such as carers.
“The needs of carers are varied and they face many difficulties,” he said. “We will look into the issue after we set up a new commission on targeted poverty alleviation.”
This was in addition to the three existing groups – families living in subdivided flats, single-parent families and all-elderly households – identified by the Commission on Poverty in its report on the impact of the government’s targeted poverty alleviation strategy, released on Thursday.
Explaining why the poverty line had not been used in the new report, Sun said: “The biggest drawback is that it cannot tell you who is poor, what they need or how we should help them. It cannot tell at all.”
He called the poverty line a “very statistical concept that is purely based on income and takes no account of other things”.