Budget 2015: Senior citizens to get quarterly payouts

SINGAPORE — About 150,000 elderly Singaporeans are set to receive quarterly payouts to help them with living expenses, under a new scheme from the first quarter of next year.

The Silver Support Scheme will be a permanent feature in the Republic’s social security system for seniors today and in the future, said Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam in his Budget Statement delivered today (Feb 23).

Similar to how Workfare tops up wages of lower-income Singaporeans during their working years, the scheme will add to incomes in retirement. It will be paid every three months and provide a supplement of S$300 to S$750 for eligible seniors. The average recipient will get S$600 each quarter.

The scheme aims to support the bottom 20 per cent of Singaporeans from the age of 65, with a smaller degree of support extended to cover up to 30 per cent of seniors.

Read more about the Silver Support Scheme here.

To determine eligibility, the scheme will look at three factors in combination – their lifetime wages, the level of household support they have today and the type of housing they live in.

Majority of those living in one-room and two-room flats will receive the scheme, with a smaller proportion of those living in larger Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats qualifying.

The scheme – which aims to supplement incomes and not substitute for other sources of income – is estimated to cost about S$350 million in the first full year. Together with Workfare, the Government will be spending about S$1 billion a year on this system of progressive social support for seniors, said Mr Tharman.

The Ministry of Manpower will be ready to implement the scheme around the first quarter of next year and provide the final details closer to implementation.

In the interim, the Government will introduce an extra GSTV-Seniors’ Bonus this year for this group of Singaporeans and stay in HDB flats.

The scheme was first announced at last year’s National Day Rally by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

READ THE FULL BUDGET STATEMENT HERE

Other documents on Budget 2015 available on the Budget 2015 website.

Read more about Budget 2015: Silver Support Scheme here.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said senior citizens would get annual payouts. This is incorrect. The payouts are quarterly. We are sorry for the error.