sir, may i have some more...

from: www.bernama.com.my

Poverty line to be adjusted

KUALA LUMPUR, mon:

The national poverty line will be adjusted, taking into account current inflation rate.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Senator Datuk Amirsham Abdul Aziz said this was because the national poverty line currently in use had not taken into account the knock-on effect of the recent oil price increase. “The government is aware of the effects of inflation and price hike of goods on household expenditure.

The poverty line will be updated from time to time, taking into account the current inflation,” he said in reply to Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim (PKR-Bandar Tun Razak) in the Dewan Rakyat here today. Abdul Khalid had asked whether the government was aware that the national poverty line currently in use was too low and illogical to fend for a family, and asked the government to give the percentage of poor households in each state if the minimum monthly household income were to be raised to RM1,500.

Currently, the national poverty line is based on the minimum monthly household income of RM753. It is defined as the income that enables a household to meet its basic needs in terms of food and not food that enables each member to function in society.

Amirsham said if the national poverty line was raised to RM1,500 as proposed by Abdul Khalid, poor households would make up about 24.3 percent of the total number of households. To another question from Abdul Khalid on the status of the proposal on minimum wage, he said the matter was still under consideration and could not be announced yet.The minimum wage of RM900 and cost of living allowance of RM300 had been proposed by the Malaysian Trades Union Congress to help the people cope with the rising cost of living.



my thoughts:

imagine that. if the government were to raise the poverty line to rm1500, our poverty rate would shoot up to almost 25%. mind boggling! we are a poor country after all - poor in the sense we have a lot of poor people.

the current poverty line is based on the minimum monthly household income of RM 753. why and how the government arrived at this figure is a mystery, at least to me. i believe we can all agree on one thing. nobody in this country could live comfortably with that income level. regardless whether it is an urban or a rural area. no way. imagine a family of four with an income of RM 800 - just above the poverty line. there is no way they could lead an acceptable quality life.

so it is useless to have an indicator that is not practical at all. and does not provide a true picture of the quality of living of the people.

therefore, i propose two sets of poverty line to be established - Urban Poverty Line (UPL) and Rural Poverty Line (RPL). the government already has the definition of urban. so there is no issue of what is urban, what is rural. it is crucial to have these two sets of poverty line, as the approach to tackle urban poor and rural poor might be completely different. a 'one solution fits all' program would definitely fail to address the different needs and problems of the urban and rural folks.

so what would be the quantum? honestly, i dont know. maybe RM1500 for UPL. and RM 1000 for RPL. those figures may be good starting points for consideration.

we may take pride in our success of reducing poverty since our independence. yes have we succeeded on many fronts. but in our determination to alleviate poverty using the current set standard, we may have 'missed' the emergence of a new group of poor. these poor may not be poor with present definition. but there are definitely poor in the current economic scenario.

the point is let's not be 'syok sendiri'. we may continue to succeed alleviating poverty using the RM 753 criteria. we may even succeed in eradicating hardcore poverty by 2010. but are we really helping the poor? are we afraid that if we were to raise the poverty line, then the poverty rate would increase and thus indicating a failure? that should not be the case. in fact, we would do justice to the deserving.