Income inequality has been an issue for a long time in Singapore and the government is constantly reviewing and implementing new policies to tackle this problem. Gini coefficient is used as a measure of income inequality. It is a number between 0 1o 1, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality and 1 corresponds to absolute inequality.
According to Singstats, the Gini coefficient in 2013 fell from 0.463 to 0.412. This statistic tells us that the income gap between high income earners and low income earners have decreased, which is a positive thing. The drop in the Gini coefficient is probably thanks to the government as they have implemented various policies and schemes to tackle this problem of inequality.
Budget 2013, tighten foreign worker
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The tightening of foreign worker policy aims to help businesses to upgrade, create job opportunities for locals and increase wages. In a long term plan, it will put in place a framework to ensure that firms give fair consideration to Singaporeans in their practices. After implementations of the foreign workers policies in 2012 and 2013, incomes of Singaporeans have significantly increased compared to previous years, especially for low wage workers. According to the 2014 budget statement, wages have continued to increase. The wages of the median wage workers have increased by nearly 5% in real terms in 2013. The wages for lower income workers have also grown, with those at the 20th percentile of the income ladder seeing real wages increase by about 7%. Businesses are now hiring more local workers to meet their manpower needs as foreign worker policies tightened. Many business are responding and adapting through the introduction of technology and automation, offering more self-service options to consumers, or offering better and more flexible jobs to attract Singaporean. This encourages Singaporeans, including the economically inactive residents, back to into labour force, picking up job opportunities and reducing the reliance on foreign workers. Singapore’s unemployment rate remains low, maintaining the high level of employment driven by locals. According the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) website, locals employed …show more content…
However, even though the government achieved their goal which is to narrow the income gap, it has attained unintended consequences like foreign firms or investors having second thoughts and thinking more carefully when it comes to investing here in Singapore. This is definitely a con to Singapore’s economy because part of Singapore’s wealth comes from investment from foreign firms and countries. In order to make amendments and improve the tightening of foreign worker policy, we suggest that Singapore’s government should be more flexible when it comes to this policy because different companies will have different needs to be catered to. For example, the service line quota is 7 Singaporeans to 1 foreign worker. However, this is a nearly impossible task for a small company because the company may not need that many workers and that a small company may not be able to afford to hire so many workers. Therefore, for a small company, the quota can be adjusted to 2 Singaporeans to 1 foreign worker according to its required needs that the company ask for. This flexibility of policy will rely on a case by case basis to ensure that other firms do not take advantage of this flexibility. For example, firms writing in implying that they need more manpower for the job but in actual fact, the workers are used to carry
Many solutions, such as social investment, early childhood education, job training for young adults are avenues for addressing the shrinking middle class. Many of these ideas have been around since the 1990s, and most know that they will work, however, no one wants to pay the cost of such social investments. Thus, this is a fine example of how one topic, income inequality, can be addressed from two different angles, that of economist and that of sociologists, and what contributes to the inequality can be supported based on what is actually measured. In this specific comparison, due to the differences in disciplines addressing the same issue, the variables measured are completely different and as a result, yield very different results.
By 1940, a child raised in an average American household had a 92% of making more money than their parents. As time progressed the averages began to decline. In the 1950s, the average still maintained to be elevated but receded to 79%. Rates dropped to 50% in the 1980s and the numbers presently continue to deteriorate (Leonhardt).
The problem of income inequality is not something new, but it is something that people must worry about because it is affecting not only our wallets, but our communities as a whole. I agree on the author’s point of view about income inequality in the United States his position is very similar to another Robert Reich documentary called “Inequality for all” where he mentions all the aspects that brought United States economic system to a hold just to help a fraction of all population one of those systems was education where before the nineteen eighties it was cheaper to go to college than nowadays or the fact that workers were pay almost the same as any other for their sacrifice . Going back to the video on debate he mentions how policies changed
People around the world have many different political views whether they are going for the same candidate or not. Some people are pro-life, and some aren’t, some people think we need to spend more money to help close our debt, and some people think that we need to just invest it into American businesses. There are people who are Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, you name it in the USA we have it. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave and people interpret it in so many different ways. I am sure that you could find maybe three people with the exact same ideas as you from the big federal money spending problems, to immigration problems, all the way to the other problems such as equality for the LGBT group, or legalizing marijuana in all 50 states.
For many decades the economic growth of American has shifted to different standards. Each generation of growing up in America can and will face different economic situations than the generation before them. It is a part of circular flow of economics. One factor that is brought up, especially in recent years is income inequality. During a debate hosted by intelligence squared, two sides argued the notion the rich in America are taxed too much.
Income Inequality Income Inequality or “wage gap” is a big topic for freedom fighters and liberals for the simple fact that it isn’t equal for everyone. Because the wage gap is so prominent it's one of the biggest “facts” that discrimination is still apart of everyday American society. The wage gap from these radical interest groups think the economy is get a dollar take a dollar instead of a free flow economy. This misguided idea of the economy is absolutely not true and isn’t at the fault of the Government, but the people.
In the event that the lowest pay permitted by law is raised then low maintenance laborers, generally young people, would have all the more burning through cash and would along these lines help the economy. Expansion has consistently been on the ascent too since the last increment and with the late assessment climbs, it is important to build the lowest pay permitted by law. Additional pay in the pockets of somewhere in the range of 16.5 million specialists could stream down to retailers and give a support to the economy. This isn 't to say low-wage specialists wouldn 't spare some of their additional pay, yet given the poor funds rate of laborers in the U.S., we should simply say I wouldn 't be amazed to see utilization ascend, with vast distribution center retailers like Wal-Mart profiting bigly. According to CNBC news, Christian Weller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress said, “the U.S economy will benefit from the raise of wage.
Their minimum wage was considered $14 which kept them happy. This concludes that increasing the minimum wage can have good effects on the way people work; They could be more
“When women succeed, America succeeds” ~President Barack Obama Imagine being a hard-working woman with a successful career and a well-known name. Now imagine making 0.07% of what your male counterpart is making. Unfortunately, in today's world, imagining this is not impossible, seeing as though it is happening right now in Hollywood.
Higher corporate tax rates have caused some corporations to move their headquarters out of the United States, or to hold their money in offshore accounts (Hoogstra, Dimkoff, and Sundaram). The only downside with this compromise alone is it does not require companies to increase the wages of their
So, a rise in immigration will probably lead to a decline in salaries in certain job areas, while a rise in salaries is acquired in some other labor
Income inequality had an enormous impact on the United States’ history with the Great Depression that occurred in 1929. The principal impact of income inequality is surely the poverty rate that increases in the United States because a lot of the income goes to the richest population. As explain in this paper there are a variety of different technics to calculate the inequality within a country, some methods are more reliable than others. The most commonly used method is the Gini coefficient, which can help to compare the level on inequality between countries. In order to reduce the inequality in the country, the government try to found some solutions.
3.1 How income inequality affect on people live in America. The income gap in America affects people, who live in this country. The issue has a strong impact in America’s society; in particular, the nutritional disparity between rich and poor people. In USA, the food gap becomes the top signal for the class distinction, but it used to be clothing or fashion. The food inequality in America is not only influencing the poverty, it is also cost hundreds of billions of dollar per year because of Non Communicable Diseases (NDCs) (Ferdman, 2014).
America prides itself on being one of the most effective democratically governed counties. The idea of the American dream is that all people have equivalent political freedoms and a responsive government. However the effectiveness of social equality is being threatened by increasing inequality in the United States. Economic inequality in the US has expanded drastically. The wealth gap has had drastic changes over the past 35 years.
According to the world’s unemployment rate, Singapore was ranked 12th among 207 countries with a 2% in 2015 (Cia.gov, 2016). This is quite an achievement for the country; but how does the government achieve this? Singapore’s most valued capital is its workforce because there are no natural resources in the country. The government is fully aware of this and has various schemes and policies to upgrade and protect the rights of and individual in the workforce. 2.1