Widening Wealth Gap a Singaporean Worry

Last updated on December 8th, 2022

Over the last two months, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam have highlighted the dangers of Singapore’s rising income inequality on separate occasions.

These concerns are shared amongst Singaporeans, with 4 in 5 (81%) worried about the widening income gap. Youths (90%) and young working adults (86%) are more likely to feel anxious about the unequal distribution of income.

About 7 in 10 Singaporeans (69%) feel that income inequality in Singapore has worsened over the past 5 years, with more than 1 in 4 (27%) believing the income gap has gotten “much worse”.

Singaporeans are evenly divided on the effectiveness of measures to counter income inequality. Just over half (52%) of Singaporeans think that the current Government policies put in place to address income inequality (such as SkillsFuture, KidSTART and Silver Support etc.) are not effective. Nearly 3 in 5 Singaporeans over the age of 50 find the current measures insufficient and that perhaps raises the question if more attention needs to be given to ageing Singaporeans.

Author: Blackbox Research Team