As income in Western countries (at best) have stagnated, Singapore has bucked the trend as the median household income there has grown by 18% in real terms (after adjusting for the increase in the cost of living) since 2010 or after the global financial crisis, according to Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam. He noted:
“We’ve seen very unusual sustained income growth in real terms, not just for the people at the top, but for the middle class – and in fact, the households in the low-income group have seen slightly faster real income growth than those in the middle… This isn’t some statistics we wish for, this is hard data… To realise how unusual that is, you must understand that we operate in a world where very few countries have seen real wage growth in the middle… In the advanced countries – the United States, Europe, Japan – there has been negative real income growth … Taiwan has seen negative real income growth, Hong Kong basically flat, a very small increase in income growth far less than our 18 per cent.”
Tharman also pointed to problems in China, Malaysia, Indonesia and the US to say:
“There is a high degree of uncertainty as to what the shape of the world will be a year from now, three years from now….There’s a high degree of confidence in Singapore because (investors) know we’ve got policies that working. They know, from our track record, we can deal with crises when they occur.”
In the last days of election campaigning, various opposition candidates had spoken about stagnating wages in the face of inflation, the need to institute a minimum wage and redistribute resources. Nevertheless, PAP, the ruling party, still won decisively on Friday.
To read the whole article, ‘Significant growth’ in real incomes makes Singapore ‘unusual’: Tharman, go to the website of Channel NewsAsia. In addition, check out our Singapore ADRs list, Singapore closed-end funds list and Singapore ETFs list along with: The Singapore Story: Not a Sure Thing for Investors?
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