What do singaporeans lack access to

But the lion's share of spending will go to the older generation. Some , aged 65 and above will get medical benefits ranging from specialist care to medical insurance. The city-state has one of the fastest ageing populations due to the low birth rate, and many of the elderly, dubbed the "pioneer generation", are credited with the work that built today's modern, wealthy Singapore.

But despite the wealth, there is increasing discontent. The ruling People's Action Party, which has held power for more than half a century, suffered its worst election result in It has since lost two more by-elections, and some analysts say that they are now seeking to placate a more demanding electorate. Financially, Singapore can afford a welfare state for those in need, said Eugene Tan, an associate professor of law at Singapore Management University who comments widely about local politics.

But politically, welfare is unpopular, he said. But he admits that Singapore has become more welfare-oriented than ever before, even if that welfare is strictly controlled. But whether Singapore ever goes the way of many other developed economies by providing more welfare for families like Nurhaida's would be "a tightrope walk", he said.

Singapore's hidden poverty problem. Are Singapore's poor better off? Singapore's mid-life crisis. In contrast, 66 per cent of higher-income households above the 10th percentile surveyed reported that their needs have been met. The 36 percentage point contrast ranks higher than the 22 percentage points in China, or 19 percentage points in the United States. Overall, Singapore managed a 76 per cent net satisfaction score, ranking fourth out of 36 countries assessed, based on satisfaction with 26 different digital government services.

Satisfaction in digital government services among Singapore's lowest-income group was the worst among any income group in Singapore.

Trust is another issue in the digital divide. The lowest-income group evidenced by far the least satisfaction in areas of security, transparency and communication of benefits, according to the BCG report. Just 66 per cent of those in the lowest-income group trusted that their personal information would be safe from hacking, compared with 82 per cent in the highest-income band. Only 69 per cent of the lower-income group noted a belief that personal information would not be used for any purpose other than for which it was collected, compared with 84 per cent for the highest-income group.

This reveals a clear gap in relative trust of digital government services between these two income groups. The question of trust in digital government services is a particularly timely discussion, considering recent revelations around how data collected under Singapore's TraceTogether programme to track Covid contacts may be used for criminal cases too. Register for free Already a member?

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Then you will be able to mark statistics as favourites and use personal statistics alerts. Save statistic in. XLS format. PNG format. PDF format. Show details about this statistic. The flip side of this, however, is that other food insecure groups whose needs may not be so plain to see, or so simple to ascertain, find themselves falling under the radar.

The year-old and her husband had bought a four-room HDB flat, and after they moved in in April last year, she said, the floors started to crack and there were leaks everywhere - an unsafe situation for her children, aged two to While the majority of food-insecure participants in the Lien Centre study did live in one- and two-room flats, 40 per cent live in three-room flats or bigger. These Singaporeans are overlooked as they are often not eligible for financial aid, observers noted.

To ensure that funds go to those who really need it, ComCare assistance, as well as aid disbursed by some larger welfare organisations, often involves some form of means testing. The danger in means-testing is that people who genuinely need help will fall through the cracks because they do not fit the criteria in one way or another, said economist Walter Theseira, an associate professor at Singapore University of Social Sciences.

Then, there are the unforeseen medical expenses and costs of transport to go see a doctor when the child falls sick. She recalls one in particular. Her team promptly delivered three cartons of food. We started crying too.

The year-old works as a security guard, but only part-time as the pain from an old spinal injury gets so unbearable some days that he struggles to leave his two-room rental flat. Ansar gets by on one meal a day, chugging water to feel full. The children meanwhile get chicken nuggets, fries, bread and spreads.

They receive food support from Food From The Heart, but when desperate, Ansar also turns to groups on Facebook where members donate milk powder or diapers to families in need.

Even so, many low-income families seem to get along fine in terms of meals, with careful management of their expenses — until they lose a breadwinner. More than half of the moderately-to-severely food insecure individuals in the Lien Centre study were from families headed by single, divorced or widowed parents. It affected his concentration at work as a security guard. So he borrowed money. The debt repayments snowballed.

Before he knew it, there was simply not enough money to feed his daughter and his sister who stays with them. Then there is Norashikin Mohd, 36, who was a housewife until her husband was jailed for several months. Norashikin tried to cook each day before leaving for work — a meal, usually of rice and just one dish, to be shared by all over both lunch and dinner.

One afternoon last September, Fion from Keeping Hope Alive was visiting some elderly residents at a block of rental flats, when an 8-year-old girl came barreling down the corridor.

She had some custard buns left over from lunch, which she offered the girl. She had bugs in her hair and no clothes other than the school uniform she was wearing. He got to see his daughter only briefly in the morning before heading out for his hour shift as a security guard. Constantly tired and stressed, he seemed almost defeated by the never-ending cycle of paying off his debt only to borrow more to stay afloat.

Utilities bills went unpaid. Under all this weight, Fion recognised his dogged determination to be a father. There are people who find it hard to cope. The Ministry of Social and Family Development MSF however, said that when Sam approached the SSO in , it was over an appeal to HDB for rental assistance, and that when asked, he had "declined to apply" for financial assistance as he wanted to be self-reliant.

MSF also clarified that income "is not the sole criteria for ComCare assistance", and that the needs of applicants, such as for healthcare or food, are assessed holistically. The good thing is that during the school term, Katie, who is on financial assistance, gets one meal a day taken care of under the School Meals Programme. Dinner at home usually consists of rice and one dish cooked by her year-old aunt. Aunty and I just go hungry together.

When Shanger entered polytechnic, he started to get paid for his internship and for distributing flyers, while his younger brother had his National Service allowance. So regular meals became a thing again for his family. Shanger no longer eats salted rice for his one meal of the day — quite the other extreme, in fact.

He now eats up to five meals a day, typically consisting of fried rice, chicken rice and fast food — all the food he never got to enjoy as a child. The typical diet of a person who is food insecure — processed meals high in carbohydrates and sodium, low on nutritional value — puts them at higher risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiac disease, and other chronic illnesses. When they get out of food insecurity, the shift to energy-dense foods can lead to high blood sugar levels. And psychological conditioning kicks in: Some like Shanger systematically overeat, because of an obsession to not waste food.

The lean years have also left another mark on Shanger.