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Relax the age and income criteria for Workfare - which is set to be the fourth pillar of Singapore's social safety net - to help middle income workers, unionists have urged ahead of Budget Day next Thursday.

They also hope to see a generous GST offset package, and higher CPF contribution rates for employers in a developmental Budget with something for everyone.

Unionists also hope the Budget will strengthen the country's competitiveness and help average Singaporeans improve their lives.

Halimah Yacob, Assistant Secretary-General, NTUC, said: "We don't hope to see only (benefits) for low income workers, because we also represent a lot of middle income workers who have come up to us to say, in the past, even when the income tax was lowered, they had lower CPF as well. That, somehow, did not equal out to more benefits for them. So I hope that this budget, we will see also something for the middle income people."

Another hope is to have fewer conditions attached to the Workfare scheme.

She said: "If this scheme is meant to help all the low wage workers, then I think one of the criteria, at least I hope the government will revisit, is the age criteria. Because if it is still 40 years old, then low income workers below 40 will not benefit although they may benefit from the housing grant and so on.

"And if the intention is also to help the middle income (group), perhaps what needs to be revisited is also the income criteria. But I do accept the fact that whatever criteria that we draw the line at, especially for income, there will be people who will be affected and who will be unhappy."

Unionist Muthu Kumar agrees and hopes to see the Workfare bonus going to more workers and for more to be done to help offset the proposed GST increase.

He is the General Secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Public Daily Rated Workers.

He said: "My suggestion is...to increase the salary of the low wage workers and restore the CPF - the employer pays more, the employee pays the same as now."

Besides Workfare and changes to the CPF contribution rate, unionists hope to see Medisave top-ups for older Singaporeans especially retirees, and Edusave top-ups or even setting up post-secondary education accounts for younger Singaporeans - all to help low-income workers and their families. - CNA/ch

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