SARA RM100: Shifting the window for welfare — Derek Kok

Malay Mail

24-07-2025

JULY 24 — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced yesterday a one-off RM100 cash aid for all adult Malaysians as a gesture of appreciation in conjunction with National Day to ease cost-of-living pressures.
Much has been said about the limitations of this scheme, such as the small value of the cash aid and the existing spending restrictions imposed on the SARA (Sumbangan Asas Rahmah) scheme.
Critics dismiss the amount as trivial; a populist drop in the ocean of rising living costs. Supporters hail it as timely relief. Both perspectives, however, miss the policy's potential significance.
This scheme represents a potential policy 'trial balloon' for a fundamental shift in Malaysia's approach to social welfare that could pave the way for a more comprehensive social safety net.
As stated by the prime minister himself, it is the 'first time in history that cash aid is extended to all adult Malaysians'.
The universal nature of this aid can potentially shift the Overton window — the range of ideas the public is willing to consider and accept — on social protection in Malaysia.
For decades, the national conversation on welfare has been confined to narrow, often divisive, frameworks of poverty-targeting and ethnic-based redistribution.
Recipients of the SARA (Sumbangan Asas Rahmah) buying necessities during a Bernama photo survey at a supermarket in Kuala Terengganu, July 23, 2025. — Bernama pic
By introducing a small-scale, universal benefit, the government can normalise a new principle: social support as a right of citizenship, not just a provision for the poor.
The country's welfare architecture has been defined by a succession of means-tested cash transfer programs, evolving from Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) to Bantuan Sara Hidup (BSH) and, more recently, the targeted versions of Sumbangan Tunai Rahmah (STR) and the original SARA.
These programmes were designed with the stated goal of channelling aid to low-income households, identified through income thresholds and databases like eKasih, which lists poor and hardcore poor families.
The logic of these programmes has been to identify the 'deserving poor' through complex, and often flawed, means-testing.
This model, while well-intentioned, has created a system that is fragmented, inefficient, and often fails to reach those most in need due to exclusion errors.
It fosters stigma by dividing citizens into givers (the M40 middle class) and takers (the poorest bottom 40 per cent of the population).
While concepts like a universal social protection floor or a UBI (universal basic income) have been discussed within academic and think tank circles, they have remained firmly outside the window of mainstream political viability and are often dismissed as fiscally profligate or politically unworkable.
The national debate has been stuck in this polarised loop, with little room for alternative paradigms.
Anwar's 'SARA Untuk Semua' initiative could pave the way for another paradigm to emerge from this deadlock.
For the first time in our history, a social benefit is being extended to all adult citizens not because of their income, their ethnicity, or their level of need, but simply on the basis of their citizenship.
This is a profound philosophical shift. It reframes social protection from a charitable handout for the unfortunate to a universal right and a collective investment in our national resilience.
Its small, one-off, and controlled nature makes it a low-risk experiment, designed to normalise the principle that every citizen has a direct stake in the nation's social safety net.
The built-in conditionality of the SARA scheme, whereby recipients were only permitted to use the aid to purchase a select list of groceries which excludes fresh produce, could also act as a soft launch for more universal modalities in government aid.
In a political environment long accustomed to welfare models based on means-testing and conditionality, a purely unconditional universal grant might be dismissed as radical or fiscally irresponsible.
By wrapping the novel concept of universality in the familiar language of control ('for essentials only'), the idea of universal programmes becomes more palatable.
It appears less like a revolutionary departure and more like a sensible, controlled extension of existing principles.
This approach serves to gently nudge the concept of universal aid into the Overton window, disarming potential critics by using the very lexicon of the old, targeted system to introduce a new, universal one.
This move is made even more potent by its connection to another politically challenging reform: the rationalisation of blanket subsidies.
For years, the removal of blanket subsidies for items like fuel has been politically perilous due to expected public backlash.
Simultaneously, universal cash aid has been seen as too costly. By packaging them together, the government can create a new, more compelling policy proposition: 'We will replace inefficient, regressive subsidies that disproportionately benefit the wealthy with efficient, progressive, universal cash aid that benefits everyone'.
In this construction, the universal cash aid acts as the direct, visible compensation that makes the pain of subsidy removal politically survivable.
This manoeuvre attempts to shift the Overton window for both policies at once. It makes subsidy reform more 'acceptable' by cushioning its impact on the public, and it makes universal cash aid more 'sensible' by presenting a clear, fiscally responsible funding source through the savings from abolished subsidies.
This represents a sophisticated political strategy to break the long-standing inertia on two critical areas of national reform.
RM100 will not solve poverty. But to belabour the amount is to miss the point. This is a down payment on a different future.
It is a pilot programme for a new way of thinking, a test case for a social philosophy rooted in solidarity, citizenship, and shared prosperity.
The challenge now is to build on this foundation. We must move the conversation beyond the amount and focus on the principle.
This RM100 has nudged ajar the Overton window of political possibility. It is now up to policymakers, civil society, and the public to push that window wide open and have a serious, mature conversation about building a comprehensive, universal social safety net that ensures no Malaysian is left behind.
This small handout is not the destination — it is the start of the journey.
* Derek Kok is Senior Research Analyst at the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia, Sunway University. His research focuses on social protection policies.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.