The Commission on Poverty held a meeting today, chaired by Chief Secretary Carrie Lam, to discuss retirement protection.
Members were briefed on the social security system and the elderly poverty situation in Hong Kong.
Statistics showed there has been a marked improvement in the elderly poverty situation since the full implementation of the Old Age Living Allowance in April 2013.
The elderly poverty rate saw a drastic decrease of 14.4 percentage points in 2013, down from 44.9% to 30.5%, notably higher than the corresponding decrease recorded in 2012.
Among the 290,000 poor elderly people in Hong Kong, about 20% are living on Comprehensive Social Security Allowance.
Of the remaining 230,000 non-CSSA poor elderly people, about 130,000 claim they do not have financial needs. They may own some assets, reflecting the limitations of the poverty line of using income to measure poverty without considering assets.
The committee agreed that under the existing social security system, some elderly people are still not adequately cared for. Members agreed to explore whether there is any room for merging the standard rates of CSSA for the elderly and OALA, to address the basic living needs of poor able-bodied elderly persons.
Meanwhile, the committee endorsed an additional provision of $142.83 million for the "One-off Living Subsidy for Low-income Households Not Living in Public Housing & Not Receiving CSSA" programme to deal with the number of applications.
The estimated total provision for the programme will amount to about $610.95 million and the estimated number of beneficiary households will increase to 68,100 after the adjustments.
