Speaking in Parliament on 14 October 2020, Labour Member of Parliament Fahmi Aliman urged the Government to consider including younger low-wage workers in the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) Scheme.
Mr Fahmi is also the director of NTUC’s Operations and Mobilisation Division Secretariat.
He highlighted that since the implementation of WIS in 2007, Singaporeans aged 35 and above in the bottom 20th to 30th percentile of the workforce had received over $5.5 billion in support.
Mr Fahmi pointed out that as the WIS payout amount depends on the age and income of the worker, only older employees and those with lower incomes will receive higher payouts.
He argued that this differentiation comes from the assumption that younger workers have a greater potential to earn more as they progress in their career.
He proposed that the Government studies if this assumption still holds and consider lowering the age eligibility for the WIS Scheme to 30.
“While I do not discount that we should support our older workers, it does stand to reason that our younger workers may have dependents, such as elderly parents of young children, which can be a strain not only financially but also mentally,” he said.
Mr Fahmi also suggested having the WIS payout standardised across the different age groups and based on the workers’ income.
Mr Fahmi previously called for the Government to consider increasing the WIS payout for essential workers to acknowledge their social value and the hardship faced in their line of work.
“This hardship has been even more prevalent in the last few months, where many of our essential service workers have stepped up to become our ‘everyday heroes’, continuing to keep Singapore clean, green, and safe,” he said.
