Chief Secretary and Commission on Poverty Chairperson Matthew Cheung presented the Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report 2016 today and gave an analysis of the report.
Mr Cheung said on the back of moderate economic growth and a stable labour market in 2016, there was an across-the-board rise in poverty line thresholds, due to an increase in household income.
Pre-intervention poverty figures in 2016 rose slightly year-on-year, with a poor population of 1.35 million people and a poverty rate of 19.9%.
After recurrent cash policy intervention, the poverty rate in 2016 recorded a slight increase of 0.4 percentage point to 14.7%. The poor population rose slightly to 995,800 people.
Mr Cheung said the overall poverty situation remained stable, with the size of the poor population staying below a million for the fourth consecutive year.
However, he noted Hong Kong’s aging population put upward pressure on the overall poverty figure.
The proportion of elderly people in domestic households grew 0.6 percentage point to 15.7% in 2016.
Most elderly are retired with no stable income, and will be categorised as poor as the poverty line measures household income, without considering assets.
The poverty rate was above 30% for citizens aged 65 and above, which was much higher compared to other age groups.
Mr Cheung said: “There are constraints in the way we measure poverty, because we are following the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development yardstick, which means that we just count the income without assessing the assets situation.
“We don't really know the assets of individuals in Hong Kong, and also we do not take account of recurrent non-cash subsidy, particularly public housing. If you take account of public housing, the poverty rate will become 10.4% - much, much less. We're talking about 700,000-plus people living below the poverty line.”
Mr Cheung said the enhancement of the Old Age Living Allowance, the improvement of the Low-income Working Family Allowance Scheme, and the Life Annuity Scheme to be launched by the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation, will have positive impact on future poverty figures.
