Latest news with #socialwelfare
South China Morning Post
14-07-2025
- Health
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong urged to expand carer support scheme for low-income, vulnerable groups
A Hong Kong pilot scheme to identify hidden cases of at-risk carers should be expanded to cover low-income families and subdivided flat tenants with more timely follow-up, a social worker and a district councillor have urged, as a new database to address the issue began operation. The first action of the government's scheme, which began at 9am on Monday, would involve the Hospital Authority sending daily alerts to the Social Welfare Department on whether any carer from the 8,000 to 9,000 households listed in the database had been hospitalised. The department would then follow up on the situation of the elderly or disabled person being cared for and provide services such as meal deliveries or respite services. The scheme was set up after a series of tragedies in the city amid an increasing burden placed on carers' shoulders, with most cases involving single elderly people living alone and elderly couples taking care of each other. Social worker Crystal Yuen Shuk-yan cited concerns about possible time lags and questioned whether the alerts from the Hospital Authority to the Social Welfare Department would be prompt enough. 'If a carer was hospitalised during the day but authorities only receive an alert the next morning, wouldn't it be a long period of time where their dependents do not receive food or care?' she said on a radio show on Monday.
Malay Mail
12-07-2025
- Health
- Malay Mail
‘Trust is the first phase': Man living on streets for 30 years among 17 helped in Kuching night raid to tackle hidden homelessness
KUCHING, July 12 — An integrated night operation involving 12 agencies led to the identification of 17 homeless individuals around Kuching early this morning, as part of efforts to provide immediate aid and safe shelter under the state's social welfare initiatives. The outreach, coordinated by the Ministry of Women, Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development (KPWK), was announced by its Minister, Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah, during a press conference held shortly after the operation concluded. 'As of 2am, we identified 14 men, two women, and one underage girl living without shelter,' she told reporters after the operation. She added that the operation was aimed at encouraging the homeless to receive support services through the Community Social Support Centre and the Temporary Transit Centre (TTG) Kuching. Fatimah stressed that TTG is not a detention centre, but a dignified, voluntary safe space. 'They are free to come and go, the aim is to offer them a place to sleep safely, bathe, eat, and slowly regain confidence in support systems. 'During the day, they can work; at night, they return to sleep,' she explained. She cited the case of 'Pak Mos,' a man who had lived on the streets for over 30 years and had finally agreed to receive assistance. 'At first, he refused, but tonight, he followed us to the Community Social Support Centre and will be placed at TTG. 'This is a huge step because trust is the first phase,' she said. Fatimah said individuals will undergo health screenings at the Community Social Support Centre before being placed at TTG. Conditions such as high blood pressure, leg cramps, or other underlying health issues will be identified and referred for appropriate action. She also noted the importance of identifying peer influencers within the homeless community. 'We found someone who can act as a leader. If we help him, he can help us reach others. 'His influence led several of his friends to agree to engage with us,' she said. The operation also highlighted the fluidity of homelessness data in Kuching. Fatimah said some individuals may return to their hometowns temporarily, while others end up on the streets due to job loss or inability to pay rent. 'One person voluntarily went to Hidayah Centre after losing their home due to rent issues. 'This shows homelessness isn't always long-term; it can happen suddenly and to anyone,' she explained. According to Fatimah, 134 personnel were involved, each playing a key role such as verifying identification documents, referring health issues, or addressing substance abuse concerns. Four teams were deployed to high-risk zones: Group 1 covered the Waterfront, India Street, and Electra House; Group 2 covered Satok, Wisma Satok, and Matang; Group 3 in Padungan, Padang Ragbi, and Tabuan Melayu; while Group 4 focused on King Centre, Batu 3, and MJC areas. The 12 participating agencies included the Social Development Council (MPS), Kuching Resident and District Office, Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM), Social Welfare Department (JKM/PKMB Kuching), Immigration Department (JIM), Kuching Divisional Health Office, National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK), Kuching North City Hall (DBKU), Civil Defence Force (JPAM), National Registration Department (JPN), Kuching South City Council (MBKS), and Hidayah Centre Foundation. — The Borneo Post
Irish Times
11-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Some 2.4m people were receiving social protection payments last year
Spiralling numbers of pensioners and people on disability payments are driving a social welfare bill that has increased by more than a third in a decade, new data shows. Expenditure on welfare payments was €27 billion last year, up from €19.9 billion in 2015. The largest increases were in disability, illness and carers' payments – up from €3.5 billion in 2015 to €6 billion last year (a rise of more than 70 per cent) – and in pensions , where the spend has increased from €6.7 billion 10 years ago to €11.1 billion last year (up 62 per cent). The data is contained in the 2024 annual report on statistical information on social welfare services, published on Thursday by the Department of Social Protection . READ MORE Child-related payments, including the universal child benefit and the one-parent family payment, cost €2.5 billion in 2015 and €3.3 billion last year – a 31 per cent increase. However, working-age supports, such as jobseekers allowance and benefit, and maternity benefit, have decreased by 8 per cent from €4.5 billion to €4 billion since 2015. An even sharper decrease has been seen in working-age employment supports, such as the community employment scheme, where the spend dropped 37 per cent, from €1 billion in 2015 to €661 million last year. There were 2,416,223 people getting a welfare payment at the end of last year, up from 2,113,860 in 2015 – a 14.3 per cent increase. Larger increases are seen in illness, disability and caring payments, from 340,304 recipients at the end of 2015 to 452,572 last year – a 33 per cent rise. The number of pensioners went up from 577,331 in 2015 to 757,425 last year – a 31 per cent rise. The largest increase was in child beneficiaries of the domiciliary care allowance (DCA) – a monthly payment of €360 to carers of disabled children up to age 16 – which has more than doubled. Despite an arduous application process for the DCA, the number of children qualifying for it has gone up from 31,628 in 2015 to 64,729 last year (or by 104 per cent). In demographic terms, the greatest number of beneficiaries last year were 15-year-old boys (39,883), most likely from the €140 per month child benefit payment, and, similarly, 14-year-old girls (38,207). The fewest payments in volume were made to 94-year-old men (1,189) and 94-year-old women (2,510), probably in receipt of the State pension (€288 per week non-contributory for those aged 80 and older, or up to €302.90 for contributory) as well other payments including fuel allowance and living alone allowance. In total, the report said: 'Expenditure in 2024 represented 21.6 per cent of general Government expenditure and was equivalent to 6.7 per cent of gross national income.' About 58 per cent were female and 42 per cent male, with 36 per cent of them children up to 18, and 25 per cent aged 66 or older.
Al Jazeera
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Trump didn't start the war on the poor – but he's taking it to new extremes
'A budget is a moral document,' as numerous human rights activists have said over the decades. If that is true, then the so‑called 'One Big, Beautiful Bill' represents a grotesque example of the immorality of US leadership in 2025. It is a budget that slashes Medicare and Medicaid by $930bn over the next decade and could leave as many as 17 million without healthcare insurance. The cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – a food aid scheme for Americans living in deep poverty – will render about 1 million vulnerable people ineligible for the basic human right of not starving. The US social welfare system – one that President Franklin D Roosevelt and Congress introduced with the Social Security Act of 1935 and President Lyndon B Johnson extended with Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 – is on its way to an emergency room. This is one of the steepest rollbacks of social welfare programmes in the US since their inception in 1935. Many will attribute it to Project 2025. But the disdain for social welfare in the US has always been present – because the US cannot be the US without millions of Americans who must work on the cheap, so that a select few can hoard wealth and power, and mega-corporations can hoard resources. That the US has had a mediocre and begrudging social welfare system for the past 90 years is nothing short of a miracle. While much of the Western world and other major empires either established or modernised their social welfare systems in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the US persisted with limited government intervention for citizens. Only radicals within the US labour movement typically advocated a national social welfare policy. Until the Great Depression of the 1930s, only individual states – not the federal government – provided limited economic relief to unemployed people or their families. US Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins played a critical role in persuading Roosevelt to pursue what would become the Social Security Act of 1935. Once enacted, this provided the elderly, the unemployed, disabled workers, and single mothers with federal assistance for the first time. But both of the bill's champions were aware that there would be opposition to the federal government assuming responsibility for providing benefits to Americans, even with unemployment at 25 percent. Leading business tycoons such as Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford expressed their disdain for federal social welfare. 'No government can guarantee security. It can only tax production, distribution, and service and gradually crush the poor to pay taxes,' Ford said. Alf Landon, a millionaire oilman who served as Republican governor of Kansas and ran against Roosevelt in 1936, also opposed the Social Security Act, on the grounds that the tax burden would further impoverish workers. 'I am not exaggerating the folly of this legislation. The saving it forces on our workers is a cruel hoax,' Landon stated in a 1936 speech, also fearing that the federal government would eventually dip into Social Security funds to pay for other projects. Even when Congress enacted the Social Security Act in August 1935, the compromises made served to racialise, feminise, and further limit social welfare provision. The bill excluded agricultural workers like sharecroppers (two‑thirds white and one‑third African American, who were overrepresented in this work), domestic workers (in which Black women were overrepresented), nonprofit and government workers, and some waiters and waitresses from welfare benefits. It took amendments in the 1950s to rectify some of the racial, gender, and class discrimination embedded in the original legislation. Johnson's War on Poverty in 1964-65 prompted resistance and helped catalyse a new conservative movement. Johnson sought to add Medicare and Medicaid to the Social Security regime, provide food assistance via programmes such as Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and SNAP (originally Food Stamps), and expand Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Republican and future US President George HW Bush ran unsuccessfully for Senate in Texas in 1964 against a pro‑Medicare Democrat, calling Johnson's plan 'socialised medicine' – a Cold War‑era slur equating it with communism. Racial segregationist Strom Thurmond remarked of social welfare programmes, in general – and Johnson's Medicare and Medicaid plans, specifically – 'You had [the poor] back in the days of Jesus Christ, you have got some now, and you will have some in the future,' a pitiful excuse for refusing to reduce poverty or extend federal assistance. The entire conservative pushback against what Republicans termed 'entitlements' grew from the expansion of the welfare state under Johnson. So much so that when Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, 'his administration slashed Medicaid expenditures by more than 18 percent and cut the overall Department of Health and Human Services budget by 25 percent'. Those and other austerity measures in the 1980s resulted in one million fewer children eligible for free or reduced‑price school lunches, 600,000 fewer people on Medicaid, and one million fewer accessing SNAP – according to one study. I can speak to the effect of such cuts directly. As a teenage recipient of AFDC and SNAP during the Reagan years – the second eldest of six children (four under the age of five in 1984) in the New York City area – I can say that the $16,000 in annual state and federal assistance between 1983 and 1987 felt like a cruel joke. It barely covered housing, offered minimal healthcare via underfunded public clinics, and still left us without food for a week every month. If this is what they call 'entitlements', then I was clearly entitled to almost nothing. In the past 30 years, leaders who opposed the federal social welfare apparatus have celebrated their victories with disturbing heartlessness. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole declared gleefully in 1995 that he 'was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare… because we knew it wouldn't work in 1965'. During his 2008 presidential campaign, the late Republican senator John McCain proposed $1.3 trillion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, along with a huge 'overhaul' of Social Security to balance the federal budget. Fiscal conservative Grover Norquist infamously said he wanted to 'get it [social‑welfare programmes] down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub'. US Speaker Mike Johnson claimed last week that Trump's budget would usher in 'a new golden age'. Budget priorities that ultimately harm those in poverty, restrict access to healthcare, and force people to work for food aid or medical care are nothing short of monstrous. Ninety years – and 44 years of tax breaks later – the greed and callousness of conservatives and the far right have precipitated yet another round of tax cuts favouring the uber wealthy and mega-corporations. It is only a matter of time before those whose grandparents once benefitted from Social Security and New Deal‑era welfare will seek to gut what remains of America's Swiss‑cheese safety net. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Irish Times
09-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Welfare payments fall short for decent standard of living, Oireachtas committee hears
Social welfare payments are inadequate to provide a minimum essential standard of living, the Oireachtas committee on Social protection heard on Wednesday. Speaking at the committee, Michelle Murphy, research and policy analyst at think tank Social Justice Ireland , said, 'even after the provision of social welfare payments, in 2024, there were almost 630,000 people in Ireland living below the poverty line'. The committee met to discuss pre-budget submissions with relevant organisations. 'Government should commit to benchmarking core social welfare rates to 27.5 per cent of average weekly earnings. At a minimum, this requires an increase of €25 in core social welfare rates in 2026,' said Ms Murphy. READ MORE Social Justice Ireland has proposed several measures to support those on lower incomes, including increasing child benefit by €50 per month and introducing a cost-of-disability allowance of €20 a week. Executive director of the Simon Communities of Ireland Ber Grogan told the committee that the State had the highest number of homeless people in emergency accommodation at the end of May. [ Children's charity Barnardos issues bulletin on cost of living: 'Dreading next winter's bills' Opens in new window ] She said it can be estimated that an additional 24,000 people are 'experiencing hidden homelessness', such as those couch surfing, sleeping rough, living in cars or inadequate housing. She listed several recommended measures, which she called 'pragmatic asks'. These included increasing rent supplement in line with existing tenancy rates and increasing core social welfare rates by at least €16 a week. Alone chief executive Sean Moynihan said: 'With once-off supports set to be withdrawn from Budget 2026, targeted supports are now essential' to prevent increasing poverty among older people. He noted that while Social Justice Ireland places the poverty line at €323.99 per week for a one-adult household, the maximum weekly rate for the State Pension is €289.30 for those under 80. Does the Government lack a clear plan for how to spend our money? Listen | 36:58 Alone's pre-budget submission includes recommendations to increase the pension by at least €22, to bump up the fuel allowance for older people by at least €20 and increase the living-alone allowance by at least €10. Catherine Cox, head of communications and policy at Family Carers Ireland , noted that while the Coalition has committed to fully funding the carer guarantee , geared to ensure that every family carer has access to a consistent level of support, only half of the budget has been provided for this. She called on the Government to 'provide the outstanding €3.3 million towards the carer guarantee in this year's budget'. Family Carers Ireland has also asked for the carer's allowance and carer's benefit to be increased to €325 a week and to allow carers above 66 years to receive the full allowance while in receipt of the State pension. At present, carers in receipt of that pension can receive only half the standard carer's allowance rate following a measure introduced in 2007. Irish Foster Care Association chief executive Corrine Hasson said a recent survey of its members found 78 per cent of foster carers are using their income to cover expenses for their foster child. She said the recent announcement that foster carers are to be included in the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance 'fell short of expectations' as it involves means testing for the yearly payment. She called on the Government to 'ensure foster carers receive financial supports that reflect the growing financial demands of caring for a child', including removing means testing conditions for the back-to-school allowance. Lily Power, policy officer at The Wheel , the Republic's national association of community and voluntary organisations, said that an uncertain global context, increasing inequality, polarisation and climate breakdown will make policymaking particularly difficult for 2026. Among The Wheel's recommendations are to provide funding on a full-cost recovery basis to ensure services can continue to be delivered by the voluntary and community sector, and a move towards provision of multiannual funding for the sector on a phased basis.
