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Despite a welfare state being beneficial to the unemployed and those who are not benefitting from our current system. A welfare state will be detrimental to those outside the unemployed. The profits of bosses and others will go to the unemployed which in most cases, the business leaders have no intention of employing. This will demotivate current members of the working class as a large amount of their hard work placed into their jobs will be given to unemployed. Demotivating the current Singapore workforce and bringing down the economy output of Singapore and is nearly impossible for the economy to recover

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With an official response from the government of Singapore Get our daily newsletter
FOND of having the last word, Singapore's government can nevertheless be flexible. Who would have thought it would be building casinos? But one policy that shows no sign of reversing is Singapore's antipathy towards public welfare. The state's attitude can be simply put: being poor here is your own fault. Citizens are obliged to save for the future, rely on their families and not expect any handouts from the government unless they hit rock bottom. The emphasis on family extends into old age: retired parents can sue children who fail to support them. In government circles "welfare" remains a dirty word, cousin to sloth and waste. Singapore may be a nanny state, but it is by no means an indulgent nanny.

The aftershock of a deep recession, which pushed unemployment among citizens up to 4.1% in September-high for Singapore-has not altered the popular belief that the dole is bad for society. The casinos, which open on February 14th, have already helped reduce unemployment, which by December had fallen back to 3%, seasonally adjusted.

The government does run a handful of schemes directed at some of the needy, from low-income students to the unassisted elderly. But these benefits are rigorously means-tested and granted only sparingly. The most destitute citizens' families may apply for public assistance; only 3,000 currently qualify. Laid-off workers receive no automatic benefits. Instead they are sorted into "workfare" and training schemes.

AFP

Applicants complain that the process of seeking help is made tiresome and humiliating. Indeed that could be the point, supposing it deters free-riders. Officials take a dim view of European-style welfare systems, which are said to beget laziness. The Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS), which administers the various schemes, says theirs are designed as a "springboard" to self-reliance. Getting people back to work takes priority over relieving any temporary drop in income. In a fiscal stimulus unveiled a year ago in response to the financial crisis, S$5.1 billion ($3.6 billion) was allocated for employment measures, including grants to companies to retain staff. Those who remain out of work can join a government training scheme; by December, 169,000 unemployed workers had done so.

Many Singaporeans are wedded to their jobs and look askance at idleness of any kind. The government is leery of generous handouts, fearing they might undercut the work ethic while burdening taxpayers. But the thinness of the safety net also reflects a widespread article of faith, recited and reinforced over the years. Even among the social workers who work in hard-hit communities there is surprisingly little frustration at the meagreness of the handouts on offer or at the lengthy application process. One explains that Singapore needs to weed out undeserving claimants and shakes his head at the potential cost of a comprehensive welfare service. Yet in his next breath he mentions a number of local families who have been forced to sleep rough since mortgage lenders foreclosed on their flats.

Nobody doubts that wealthy Singapore could be more generous. In 2008 the World Bank rated it the third richest country in the world, in terms of GDP per head at purchasing-power parity. And the idea that its Big-Brotherly government might be outfoxed by conniving welfare queens seems odd. When a visiting news crew filmed an elderly woman scavenging in Chinatown and bemoaning her homelessness, the government promptly identified her as a miserly flat-owner who did not need to beg. Indeed, acute poverty is hard to spot in Singapore. Public housing is in good shape; no slums are allowed to fester. Soup kitchens do exist, but foreign labourers are often first in line.

But Singapore still faces the challenge of rising inequality in a society that is also rapidly ageing. By 2030, says MCYS, one in five Singaporeans will be over 65 (UBS, whose largest shareholder is Singapore's sovereign-wealth fund, has estimated the date at 2020). Incomes have stagnated or even fallen at the bottom of the spectrum, as the rich pull further ahead of the middle classes. Long-term unemployment among middle-aged professionals, who do not qualify for workfare, is on the rise, says Leong Sze Hian, a financial expert and blogger.

Native resentment is also growing against the influx of migrant workers: 35% of the workforce of 3m is now foreign. It is often cheaper for companies to import semi-skilled and unskilled workers-there were 680,000 at last count-than to hire locals, who require pension contributions. Official reassurances that migrants create growth do not convince those competing for scarce jobs. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding father and still its "minister mentor" has maintained that ambitious migrants help to keep citizens on their toes. In an interview given to National Geographic last July he said that if native Singaporeans lag behind "hungry" foreigners because "the spurs are not stuck on [their] hinds", that is not the state's problem to solve.

This nascent backlash may eventually soften the anti-welfare tone set by Mr Lee. The Economic Society of Singapore (ESS)-not exactly a radical cell-recently proposed to a government committee that it should build a more robust safety net, starting with unemployment insurance. This would promote social stability and help muster public support for Singapore's open-door migration policies, it argues. Properly designed, such measures would not create disincentives to work and thrift. "While self-reliance is a good principle in general, it may be neither efficient nor just if taken to extremes," noted the ESS.

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With an official response from the government of Singapore FOND of having the last word, Singapore's government can nevertheless be flexible. Who would have thought it would be building casinos? But one policy that shows no sign of reversing is Singapore's antipathy towards public welfare.

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READING - Singapore's Fascinating Alternative to the Welfare State

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READING - Singapore's Fascinating Alternative to the Welfare State

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Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, died last week at age 91. Almost every obituary has remarked on the radical transition his leadership heralded. As John Fund wrote at National Review:

By embracing free trade, capital formation, vigorous meritocratic education, low taxes, and a reliable judicial system, Lee raised the per capita income of his country from $500 a year to some $52,000 a year today. That's 50 percent higher than that of Britain, the colonial power that ruled Singapore for 150 years. Its average annual growth rate has averaged 7 percent since the 1970s.

Part of the reason for Singapore's remarkable climb up the international income ladder is bread and butter capitalism. The Fraser nstitute's Freedom of the World report lists Singapore as the second freest economy in the world -- right behind Hong Kong. As Frasier scholars have demonstrated year after year, economic growth and free markets go hand and hand.

But Singapore has done something even more remarkable than its economic accomplishments. It has built an alternative to the European style welfare state. Think of all the reasons why people turn to government in other developed countries: retirement income, housing, education, medical care etc. In Singapore people are required to save to take care of these needs themselves.

At times the forced saving rate has been as high as 50% of income. Today, employees under 50 years of age must set aside 20% of their wages and employers must contribute another 16%. These funds go into accounts where they grow through time until specific needs arise. For example, one of the uses for these savings is housing. About 90% of Singapore households are home owners - the highest rate of home ownership in the world.

In health care, Singapore started an extensive system of "Medisave Accounts" in 1984 - the very year that Richard Rahn and I proposed "Medical IRAs" for America in the Wall Street Journal. Today, 7 percentage points of Singapore's 36% required savings rate is for health care and is deposited in a separate Medisave account for each employee. Individuals are also automatically enrolled in catastrophic health insurance, although they can opt out. When a Medisave account balance reaches about $34,100 (an amount equal to a little less than half of the median family income) any excess funds are rolled over into another account and may be used for non-health care purposes.

For many years, the only two scholars in the Western world who paid much attention to Singapore were Washington University economist Michael Sherraden and me. Michael approached the Singapore experience from a left-of-center perspective and I came from the opposite direction. We both ended in the same place: this is an alternative to the welfare state that works.

Lately, quite a number of other scholars have discovered Singapore, especially its health care system - again, with both right and left finding a lot to admire. It's taken almost three decades, but Singapore is now the subject of a book by Brookings Institution, a whole slew of posts by Austin Frakt and Aaron Carroll, and a good overview by Tyler Cowen, with links to other studies and comments.

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Singapore: A Fascinating Alternative To The Welfare State

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Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, died last week at age 91. Almost every obituary has remarked on the radical transition his leadership heralded. As John Fund wrote at National Review: By embracing free trade, capital formation, vigorous meritocratic education, low taxes, and a reliable judicial [...]

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READING Singapore's Version of the Welfare State

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READING Singapore's Version of the Welfare State

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Singapore's Philosophy on Welfare rests on four pillars:
1. Each generation should pay its own way.
2. Each family should pay its own way.
3. Each individual should pay his/her own way.
4. Only after passing through these three filters should anyone turn to the government for help. But it will be there when needed.

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The key is to ensure that one generation won't bankrupt future generations by living beyond its means.

Obituaries of Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore who died this week at age 91, broke down into roughly two camps:

He was a hero, building a "clean as Disneyland" republic that runs like a Swiss watch.

He was an autocrat, who built a successful economy but crushed opponents and journalists who challenged his "managed" democracy.

Both statements have big elements of truth. I take a third approach, based on a fascinating visit I made to Singapore earlier this month. Lee Kuan Yew, a member of Britain's left-wing Labour party while a student at Cambridge, managed to create a workable welfare state, one that provides for people without creating Social Security-like Ponzi schemes or unsustainable entitlements. Both liberals and conservatives have much to learn from what he built, the details of which are missing in most of the tributes to him.

Lee's first priority when he became prime minister in 1959 was to reimagine Singapore's economy. "Back then, this place was a swamp, with no natural resources, and it even had to import its drinking water from Malaysia," Jim Rogers, a noted American investor who has lived in Singapore for nearly a decade, told me during my visit there.

By embracing free trade, capital formation, vigorous meritocratic education, low taxes, and a reliable judicial system, Lee raised the per capita income of his country from $500 a year to some $52,000 a year today. That's 50 percent higher than that of Britain, the colonial power that ruled Singapore for 150 years. Its average annual growth rate has averaged 7 percent since the 1970s. "A 2010 study showed more patents and patent applications from the small city-state of Singapore (population 5.6 million) than from Russia (population 140 million)," noted economist Thomas Sowell observes.

But that wealth wasn't used to create a traditional welfare state. Economist Mark Skousen notes that Singapore is rated along with Hong Kong as one of the two most free economies in the world. Any expansion of government is gradual and grudging. In 2013, when Singapore broadened its medical-benefits program, the local Straits Times newspaper made clear the government's philosophy: "The first [priority] is to keep government subsidies targeted at those who most need them, rather than commit to benefits for all. Universal benefits are 'wasteful and inequitable,' and hard to take away once given, [finance minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam] said."

That mindset is embodied in Singapore's philosophy of welfare, which rests on four pillars:

Each generation should pay its own way.

Each family should pay its own way.

Each individual should pay his own way.

Only after passing through these three filters should anyone turn to the government for help. But it will be there when needed.

Singapore's approach to the provision of health care, retirement income, and housing is in sharp distinction to that of other countries. People are required to make relatively high payments into savings plans from which they can later buy a home, pay tuition, and purchase a variety of insurance policies. For those under age 50, the employee contributes 20 percent of his income, and the employer 16 percent. A third of the employee's share is put into a private Medisave account. When the balance reaches 34,100 U.S. dollars, any excess funds can be used for non-health-care purposes. All are enrolled in a catastrophic-health-care plan, although they can opt out.

#related#Health-care expert John Goodman is credited (along with economist Richard Rahn) with first proposing medical savings accounts in the U.S. He says Singapore shows that they can work as the backbone of a health-care system. "The issue is," he says, "can individuals be counted on to manage their own health-care dollars responsibly, or does health care work better if all the dollars are controlled by government or insurance companies?"

The answer is clear.

Not only is Singapore's population healthy, but the private sector dominates health-care spending, and consumer choice keeps health-care costs down. In Singapore, the government's share of health-care spending has fallen to 20 percent, down from 50 percent 30 years ago. "Singapore has found a rational way to provide services that are provided by legalized Ponzi schemes in the rest of the developed world," Goodman told me in an interview. "Those governments have made promises they must either default on or impose draconian taxes to pay for. Singapore has avoided that problem."

It's no wonder that other countries constantly consult Singapore for guidance on how to turbo-charge their economies. In 2011, Ghana's vice president, John Dramani Mahama, told a visiting delegation from Singapore that his country "takes a lot of inspiration from Singapore in their economic transformation from a third- into a first-world country."

There is less to emulate from Singapore's brand of politics. As Frank Lavin, a former U.S. ambassador to Singapore from 2001 to 2005, notes: "Lee believed that open politics can lead to demagoguery, rent-seeking, and short-term thinking. Yet over time, Singapore did become more open, allowing for both political debate and contested elections. . . . Of Lee's many successes, his most important legacy might be the move to that more open political system to complement the open economics."

But from my visit there, I believe that the least appreciated part of Lee Kwan Yew's legacy is his method of ensuring that one generation won't bankrupt future generations by selfishly living beyond its means. It's a welfare state that works, and one he always said was available to any political leader with the courage to tell his people the truth about the limits of government's power to pass out goodies.

John Fund - John Fund isNational Review's national-affairs reporter. @JohnFund

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In Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew Built a Welfare State That Works | National Review

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Obituaries of Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore who died this week at age 91, broke down into roughly two camps: He was a hero, building a "clean as Disneyland" republic that runs like a Swiss watch. He was an autocrat, who ...

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These are the responses by the various groups from the debate in class. I have also added in some cartoons and readings to spark some thinking regarding the issue. Please feel free to add in more cartoons or relevant materials to help make this a very useful resource for your SS study. Please remember to add in new posts under your own name. Thank you.

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People such as alcoholics will misuse the system to satisfy their drinking habits. Singapore provides people with enough education such as compulsory schooling up to secondary schools and there is no need to pay for school fees. This is to ensure that all singaporeans have the opportunity to up their skill level and knowledge to get a good job when they grow up. There is no reason that that Singapore have to provide welfare for people who are lazy and did not work hard in their younger days, making them need extra funds from the government where they can actually avoid if they had worked harder to get a good job.

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Countries such as Australia and Sweden are now having a hard time sustaining their country through their welfare system. In Australia, 8 out of 10 income taxpayers are paying for the handouts given to the poor as much as $150 billion. The government has mentioned several times  that this is because of the high unemployment rate which keep worsening every year.  In Singapore, we adopted system such as MediSave which requires people to save to pay their own way and such, not burdening the government’s budget as much.

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A welfare state will help minimise economic difference. Statistics show that 1 out of 6 houses are millionaires; the others suffer from a much lower income. These low income groups may not have jobs nor have an ability to have a sustainable lifestyle. People need an extended time to get income due to various factors. These factors include the sole breadwinner being in jail, hospitalised, etc. Foreign workers coming into Singapore have a lower salary, making these foreign workers have more benefits compared to a local Singaporean in finding jobs. Welfare will allow a family to live, not comfortably but enough time to find a self-sustaining job.

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Singapore is a first world country which has a per capita of up to $52,000 a year. We have CPF
which is we can't really use much other than for housing and insurance, education, investment
and retirement. However we can&#39;t use the money directly and the only time we even use a big sum is for housing. Does this protect us?

Yes, but not everyone... There are a group of referred to as the Cardboard people. They do not have a home, don&#39;t have proper clothes to wear, no money to buy food. So they collect
cardboards lying around shops and streets and sell them to collectors for $0.09 per kilogram...

This is the harsh reality.. So buying an adequate meal 3 times a day... It&#39;s not easy... Not only do they suffer living below substantial level but they also have to face threats from Karang guni and so on... When coming to know this, you might question what is our excellent government, which keeps self praising itself for the great city we have, doing to help this people.

Well, one of the ministers apparently talked to a group of teenagers who had an interaction with
one such aunty. His brilliant post on facebook stated that most of these people do it as they are bored at home and want to go scavenging for cardboards 5 am in the morning everyday of their lives, as a form of &quot;Exercise!&quot;. As ridiculous as that sounds, many Singaporeans have expressed their disenchantment towards this post and some even went to state about their experiences with
such people and a few went to talk to these people to really know how they felt and they are
roasting the minister for being so ignorant.

This is the Republic of Singapore... Republic means that - all citizens have an equal say and so are treated equally by the government, especially insofar as there is a constitutional prohibition on government discrimination - CPF isn't helping these people, insurance policies aren't helping but just providing them with a substantial living is our nation's responsibility. So making Singapore a welfare state will definitely help these people.

What is a welfare state? A welfare state is where a specific citizens special needs are catered to
by using the tax payers money. With 3 main components such as Financial services: Pensions and unemployment benefits, Social services: Healthcare and Education, Non-cash benefits: Medication. Since most of these are already taken care of under several schemes, we only need to implement a Liberal Welfare system which prevents anyone from falling below substantial level of living. Or a social democratic welfare which has high Taxing but offers the best of services to those in need.

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Welfare, as an obligation by the federal law leads all of us to believe that we are obligated to fund the unemployed and the impoverished. This not only diminishes the value of charitable donation and the function of the community, but it also takes a large portion of our tax contribution without our consent and channel it to the people who refuse to take up a job. This inevitably introduces a sense of entitlement in people who are dependent on the government for welfare handouts. The "welfare class" that originates due to these policies introduced by the government do possess detrimental characteristics  that not only are harmful to themselves but to the society as whole.
As such, though the welfare policies were introduced to prevent starvation, disease and misery within the poor of the land, its negative effects are much worst in terms of the contribution to the economy.

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Welfare means giving money to people of poverty.
Safeguarding and countering the "one bad apple spoils the bunch" theory would mean that the government would set up offices to grant money after analyzing their background. They would then help them pay in order to prevent people from misusing the funds should the government decide to give them money.
Also, the working class lamenting about paying for others should think about it in this perspective. If the working class were to pay for the people of poverty, the people of poverty would learn to be self-sufficient and join the working class. Therefore, in the short term perspective, it could be detrimental towards the working class. However, in the long term perspective, it will effectively reduce the ratio of the working self-sufficient class to the people of poverty

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Welfare = minimal wage & welfare system
Minimum wage leads to unemployment
Welfare system can make people lazy
Creates a mindset that unemployment is fine because they are supported by tax payer monies
Welfare made Australian Aborigines decline in productivity due to misuse into purchasing alcohol
Use welfare funds to grant employers grants to train and employ these lower income families who have unemployed members.