Paul Yip
The recent summit on poverty provided some encouraging news on alleviating the problem. Taking into account recurrent government cash benefits, the poverty rate dipped from 19.6 per cent to 14.3 per cent last year, and the number of poor people was the lowest in six years.
The poverty rate – the proportion of households earning less than half the median household income – is a relative one. The increase in the number of older adults and single-parent households over the past decade has made it harder to reduce the poverty rate, as these households are often worse off than the general population.
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