In summing up this year's budget, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam said: "We are transforming our economy so that we can have quality of growth – growth that will provide all Singaporeans a better quality of life."
The first thrust of this year's Budget is to achieve quality growth for Singaporeans while the second thrust is to build an even more inclusive society.
DPM Tharman highlighted at his budget speech on 25 February 2013 that the Government will work towards this strategy with four pillars.
Promoting social mobility is the first pillar. Towards this, the Government will double the spending on the pre-school sector over the next five years. At the school level, there will be more support for disadvantaged students.
Providing good job opportunities and growing incomes for all Singaporeans is the second pillar.
The third pillar is building a fair and progressive system of taxes and benefits, which involve strengthening the workfare scheme.
The Government will expand the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) coverage and increase WIS payouts.
Of these plans, significantly, there will be an increase in the proportion of cash in the WIS payouts, a move which unionists have been pushing for, as highlighted by DPM Tharman.
"Our unionists had made a strong call for this so as to help WIS recipients with their immediate expenses. Workers will now receive 40 per cent of WIS in cash and 60 per cent in CPF. Previously, recipients received 29 per cent of WIS in cash," he said.
The Government will also strengthen social safety nets and provide direct assistance to help Singaporeans cope with the cost of living.
One of the components on this is that the total payout of cash, Medisave and U-Save benefits will be doubled this year.
He also highlighted providing strong support for community initiatives as the fourth pillar.
