What America Could Learn from Singapore's Social Welfare System

From FEE.org (Jan. 5):

To take a look at how and where such a minimal standard of welfare design has been implemented successfully, one need only look at the city-state of Singapore. The Singapore welfare system is considered one of the most successful by first-world standards. World Bank data shows that Singapore’s government health expenditure in 2015 is only 4.3 percent of GDP, a small fraction in comparison to other first-world countries—16.9 percent in the US; 11 percent in France; 9.9 percent in the UK; 10.9 percent in Japan, and 7.1 percent in Korea—while achieving comparatively equal or better health outcomes of low infant mortality and higher life expectancies. While most of Europe, Scandinavia, and North America spend 30-40 percent of GDP on social welfare programs, Singapore spends less than half as much while maintaining similar levels of economic growth and a society relatively free of social problems.

An Emphasis on Self-Reliance

The first thing to know about Singapore’s welfare system is that qualifying for welfare is notoriously difficult by the standards of most of the developed Western world. The Singapore government’s position on welfare handouts is undergirded by a staunch economic philosophy of self-reliance and self-responsibility where the first lines of welfare should be derived from one’s individual savings, the family unit, and local communities before turning to the government. The state, in other words, should not act as a guarantor of means but merely a guardian of final recourse.

One of the most substantial organizational forms of welfare in Singapore are the state-guided self-help community groups that are structured along racial lines. They were formed to help tackle poverty alleviation for the lowest-income citizens by helping them through various schemes of general education to improve their economic opportunities. This welfare program started within the Malay community in 1981 and was deemed so successful by the end of the decade that the government gradually expanded it to form similar self-help organizations for the “under-performing” groups of the Chinese, Indian, and Eurasian races, too.

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This philosophy of self-reliance and responsibility is prominent not only in social welfare but is also replicated in the Singapore government’s approach to retirement savings, health care, education, and housing. For instance, the state’s preferred policy of ensuring individuals have sufficient resources for a rainy day is via the Central Provident Fund, a government-mandated savings account where a portion of one’s monthly salary is deducted and deposited into it. These funds can be used only for health expenses/insurance, the purchase of a home, or at the age of retirement, reflecting the government’s encouragement of self-reliance where you should “help yourself before asking others for help.”

By compelling Singaporeans to save, welfare in Singapore has traditionally been internalized first to the individual and the family/grassroots level. This forms the crux of the government’s “Many Helping Hands” social policy where the role of the family and immediate community in welfare provision is emphasized over government-funded programs. Such a form of privatized charity is neither new nor unique, as a wealth of research shows how mutual aid societies predated modern welfare states in the 20th-century United States and the 19th-century United Kingdom. [read more]

I am not so sure about mandating people to save their income, but encouraging them to save is better I think—starting in the schools at an early age. The Left doesn’t like the idea of saving because that takes power away from Big Gov.

In the article, it says that Singapore even has decentralized welfare—that way the welfare programs can be more customized to the individual. Again, another approach the Left probably won’t like.

All the above could change if China takes over Singapore in the near future.