Government plans to adjust poverty definition to cover more people

The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) will present a plan some time between May and June next year to revise the government's current definition of poverty so that more people could have access to social welfare, Minister Jiang Yi-huah said yesterday.

In an exclusive interview with the Central News Agency, Jiang said that government support of low-income households is inadequate.

More and more people are joining the ranks of the so-called "new poor" but they are not included in the government's social welfare programs, he said.

The "new poor" are defined as people with working skills who are in financial straits because they have lost their jobs, he noted. One of the MOI's main tasks will be to find a way to readjust the definition of poverty so that people in that category could be covered by the government's subsidization programs for low-income families, said the minister, who assumed office on Sept. 10

The MOI defines the low-income population as people whose monthly incomes fall below the minimum cost of living standard set by the government.

The minimum cost of living currently stands at NT$9,829 in all cities and counties except Taipei City and County, Kaohsiung City, Kinmen and Matsu.

In Taipei City it is NT$14,558, in Taipei County NT$10,792, in Kaohsiung City 11,309, and in Kinmen and Matsu NT$7,400.

According to MOI statistics, the low-income population rose to 241,237 persons in the second quarter of the year, an increase of more than 17,300 from the previous quarter. This means that it was 1.29 percent of the total population, the highest in recorded history, MOI said.

Meanwhile, asked about the falling birth rate in Taiwan, the new minister said rather than offering incentives to people to have more children, he will try to determine why they are reluctant to do so.

"Subsidies are not the right medicine for this problem," he said.

MOI statistics show that the number of newborn babies in 2008 was 196,486, dropping for the first time to below 200,000.

According to a U.S. research survey published in August, Taiwan has the world's lowest fertility rate, with an average of one child per woman, and the rate is still declining.

The survey by the Washington D.C. based Population Reference Bureau showed that Taiwan registered only eight births per 1,000 population in 2009, the lowest in the world.