Budget 2015 to zoom in on Singapore’s struggling sandwich class

There will be goodies for middle-income residents.

This year’s budget will focus on easing the bite of economic restructuring on Singapore’s sandwich class, a report by UOB revealed today.

According the report, budgets in the past few years had focused on addressing the labour crunch faced by firms as well as patching up the inadequacies in the social safety nets, particularly for the older and less well-to-do Singaporeans.

“In the upcoming 2015 Budget, we expect existing schemes to continue and further fine-tuned while anticipating more focus on the remaining segment of the society that was not targeted in previous Budgets – the sandwiched class," noted UOB.

The report stated that this group of Singaporeans had experienced the brunt of Singapore’s economic restructuring without much targeted assistance to their livelihoods and capabilities building. 

“We expect a significant portion of the Budget earmarked to provide opportunities for each Singaporean worker to upgrade him/herself. Singapore is not a low-cost country and the value created by our workers has to justify the price that we are selling to the world. No amount of money poured into investing in better machines and capital goods will be justified if workers are not upgraded/trained to work alongside such
technologies,” stated UOB.