Jul 12, 2013

The 1% welfare state revisited

According to the Asian Development Bank 2013 report on Social Protection Index, Japan spent 19% of GDP for social welfare. Even Mongolia spent 9.6% of GDP. Singapore spent 3.5% which included people's money from the Central Provident Fund.

Singapore spends the least (relatively) on social spending? by Leong Sze Hian
'I refer to the article “Asia spending too little on poor: Report” (Straits Times, Jul 12, 2013).
It states that “Singapore spent 3.5 per cent of GDP on social protection, which includes the Central Providend Fund (CPF). 
As CPF is not spending by the Government, but essentially the people’s own savings – Singapore’s social spending may actually be even much lower than that cited in the subject report.'
The 1% welfare state quotes a report that Singapore spent less than 1% of GDP for welfare. (The Improbable Resilience of Singapore | Solutions)

As a result of the low welfare spending, Singapore's wealth comes from its people.
"The assets of our SWFs represent forgone consumption by present and past generations of Singaporeans." K. Jeyaretnam
As citizen owners of Singapore, Singaporeans should get to enjoy the dividends from the sovereign wealth fund. This is happening in Alaska and Mongolia, where residents / citizens get annual dividends from their citizen ownership of common wealth. 

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