SINGAPORE – The number of lower-income families who received help from a key Government financial aid scheme fell to a five-year low in 2024, as the economy and job market improved in the years after the Covid-19 pandemic ended.
A total of 20,825 families were on the ComCare Short-to-Medium-Term Assistance (SMTA) scheme in 2024, a 9 per cent fall from the 22,960 families in 2023.
The latest figure is also 40 per cent lower than the 34,858 families in 2020 when Covid-19 first upended the world.
The SMTA gives families temporary financial aid to meet their basic living expenses. It is one of the main schemes under ComCare, the key social safety net for lower-income families here.
The 2025 Supporting Lower-Income Households Trends report released by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) on Dec 16 stated that the fall in the SMTA numbers reflected “an expansion in the economy and labour market from 2020 to 2024”.
The increase in support given by other Government schemes such as the Assurance Package, which gives lower and middle-income Singaporeans cash, CDC vouchers and other things to cushion the GST increase, also contributed to the fall in the same time period.
While the amount of cash given under the SMTA varies depending on the family’s income and needs, the median sum given per beneficiary in the family was $380 a month in 2024.
In 2024, families on the SMTA received help for a median period of six months cumulatively, said the second edition of the report, which outlined key trends in the ComCare schemes.
The 41-page report also highlighted the percentage of families who returned to seek help, after their financial aid stopped. A household is considered to be off the SMTA scheme if it stops getting aid for at least one month.
About half, or 49 per cent, of families who left the SMTA scheme in 2021 received another tranche of cash assistance within three years of leaving.
The report said: “While some SMTA households experience only temporary shocks to their financial circumstances, others face complex issues that require a longer time to resolve.”
A larger proportion of families who returned to ask for help had at least one young child, or the applicant for the scheme was medically unfit to work or had lower educational qualifications.
Mr Fareez Fahmy, chief executive officer of social service agency Allkin Singapore, said lower-income families have very “thin buffers”, such as limited savings and minimal access to informal sources of support, so an illness, job disruption or caregiving crisis can undo months of progress.
In all, the Government disbursed a total of $94 million under the SMTA in 2024, down from $105.1 million in 2023.
Another ComCare scheme whose beneficiaries are mainly seniors also had fewer recipients in 2024, despite an ageing population.
A total of 3,240 families were on the Long-Term Assistance (LTA) scheme in 2024, a 7 per cent fall from the 3,479 families in 2023. The 2024 numbers for the scheme were also the lowest in the past five years.
The LTA is for those who are permanently unable to work because of old age or illness and have little or no family support.
The report said the fall in the number of people on the LTA may be due to Singaporeans working for a longer period of time, younger cohorts of seniors having more savings, and the expansion of Government social support scheme for seniors in recent years.
A one-person household on the LTA scheme now receives $760 a month.
Associate Professor Chia Ngee Choon from the National University of Singapore’s department of economics said the fall in the number of families on the LTA could be due to Government policies aimed at improving the employability of older workers and strengthening retirement adequacy as Singapore’s population ages.
These policies include the Retirement and Re-employment Act, where employers must offer re-employment to eligible employees who turn 63, up to the age of 68.
There is also the Silver Support Scheme, which gives out cash every quarter to seniors with low incomes during their working years, among other criteria.
Dr Chia said the fall in number of families on the LTA and SMTA schemes indicate that some of these policy interventions have worked well.
The report also showed that after adjusting for inflation, the average monthly income per person in a family from employment rose more for the bottom 20 per cent of families, compared to the median family in Singapore.
For example, the average increase was 3.2 per cent for the bottom 10 per cent, compared to 0.8 per cent for the median household.
Dr Chia said the larger percentage increase in real incomes for the bottom 20 per cent of families could be due to income growth from schemes like the Progressive Wage Model and enhancements to the Workfare Income Supplement.
The Progressive Wage Model helps to raise wages through skills upgrading and improving productivity, while Workfare tops up the incomes and CPF accounts of lower-wage workers.
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