COVID-19 Recovery Grant: Extra help for workers badly hit by pandemic

By Linette Lai, Political Correspondent, The Straits Times, 17 Dec 2020

Lower-to middle-income workers who have been hit hard by the ongoing pandemic will get extra help from next year under a scheme announced yesterday.

The Covid-19 Recovery Grant (CRG) will also cushion the impact from other financial support schemes drawing to a close by the end of this year. Meanwhile, cabbies will get help through the new Covid-19 Driver Relief Fund.

In a statement yesterday, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) noted that some people remain "significantly affected" by job or income losses as the pandemic wears on. Targeted support will therefore be given to this group through the CRG, said the ministry.

The new grant is different from the existing Covid-19 Support Grant or Self-Employed Person Income Relief Scheme (SIRS), both of which are coming to an end. Applications for the Covid-19 Support Grant will close by Dec 31, while SIRS will lapse by the year end.

Under the new grant, two groups of people will be able to get up to $700 a month for three months.

These are people who are unemployed - either on account of retrenchment or because their contracts were terminated - or those who have been placed on involuntary no-pay leave for at least three consecutive months.

Other groups will get up to $500 a month for three months under the CRG. These are:

• Employees who are facing salary losses of at least 50 per cent on average for at least three consecutive months; and

• Self-employed people facing an average loss in net trade income (NTI) of at least 50 per cent over a period of at least three consecutive months, compared with their average monthly NTI last year or this year.

All these losses must have occurred after Jan 23, when the first case of Covid-19 was found in Singapore. The applicants must still be suffering such losses at the point of application.

In its statement, MSF said the grant is aimed at people with a lower household income, as well as those who have suffered more significant income losses.

Applicants must have had a gross monthly household income of $7,800 or less, or a monthly per capita income of $2,600 or less before being affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

They should have been economically active before the pandemic hit Singapore.

To qualify for the grant, applicants will also need to show proof that they have been searching for jobs or seeking to upgrade their skills through government-linked portals, attending job interviews, or participating in career coaching at specific government-linked career centres.

Meanwhile, the Land Transport Authority, which announced a new $133 million relief fund for taxi and private-hire car drivers, noted that ridership in this sector remains muted and fares per trip tend to be lower as a result of shorter commutes.

The new fund, which will give drivers $600 per vehicle every month between January and March, is meant to help with this, it said. The payout will be reduced to $450 a month between April and June.

Its new scheme replaces the existing Special Relief Fund, through which drivers have been getting payouts since February. About 52,000 drivers eligible for the Special Relief Fund will automatically qualify for the new fund.

However, drivers who get payouts under the Covid-19 Driver Relief Fund will not be eligible for the Covid-19 Recovery Grant.

By Linette Lai, Political Correspondent, The Straits Times, 17 Dec 2020

Nearly 200,000 people have benefited from the Self-Employed Person Income Relief Scheme (SIRS), with around $1.8 billion paid out between April and this month, said the Manpower Ministry and National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) in a statement yesterday.

More than half the beneficiaries were automatically eligible for the scheme, while the rest successfully applied for it.

NTUC exercised flexibility in assessing qualifying criteria for SIRS, meaning roughly seven in 10 applications processed by the organisation were approved, they added.

"The applications which were not approved involved applicants earning much higher incomes, residing in high-value properties or owning two or more properties with their spouses," they noted. "Some could not provide evidence that they were self-employed."

SIRS payouts will stop by the end of this month. However, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) will roll out a new Covid-19 Recovery Grant to help employees and self-employed people who still require financial aid.

The grant, announced yesterday, is aimed at people with lower household income, as well as those who have suffered more significant income losses.

Applicants must have had a gross monthly household income of $7,800 or less, or a monthly per capita income of $2,600 or less before being affected by Covid-19.

They should have been economically active prior to the onset of the pandemic. For employees, this means they should have worked for at least six months cumulatively between January last year and December this year. Meanwhile, self-employed people should have declared their net trade income last year or this year.

To qualify for the grant, applicants also need to prove they have been searching for jobs or seeking to upgrade their skills through government-linked portals, attending job interviews, or participating in career coaching at specific government-linked career centres.

Self-employed people may also submit supporting evidence of two attempts to reach out to clients or businesses in the two months before applying for the new grant.

People can apply for the grant on MSF's website from 9am to 10pm daily, starting from Jan 18.

"There is no need to rush to apply," said MSF in a statement. "Applicants should prepare their supporting documents in advance for a smooth application process."

Tampines GRC MP Desmond Choo, who heads the Government Parliamentary Committee for Manpower, said the new grant will serve as a safety net for workers in industries that have yet to return to their pre-coronavirus performance.

"Many workers still experience wage reduction or have yet to return to the workforce," he added. "We are seeing signs of increased hiring but it is early days."

Labour economist Walter Theseira noted the quantum of funding given out under the new scheme is similar to that given out under ComCare. It is worth asking, he added, whether this amount is sufficient to provide support for an affected family, allowing them to maintain their pre-pandemic standard of living.

To make ends meet with the current amount of cash support given, some families will have to go into debt, while others may have to make cuts in their standard of living which could impact longer-term resilience, he said.

"I do hope that a more comprehensive review of unemployment income support schemes is taken soon, learning from what has worked from our income support programmes during the crisis, and what gaps exist still."

By Toh Ting Wei, The Straits Times, 17 Dec 2020

Private-hire driver Adrian Ong, 35, has been working three to four hours more every day to make up for the slower business of the last few months, but his earnings are still about 60 per cent of what they were before the pandemic.

The drop in income has been partially covered by payouts from schemes to help workers, such as the Self-Employed Person Income Relief Scheme (SIRS), which provided self-employed people with three quarterly cash payouts of $3,000 each.

But with SIRS ending this year, drivers like Mr Ong have been hoping for some form of extra help.

Said Mr Ong, who is single: "Any form of support or assistance is definitely welcome, regardless of the amount.

"SIRS was definitely helpful to tide us over the initial difficult months, but I guess we can't expect such assistance to be long-lasting as we transition to normalcy."

He was among those who welcomed the news yesterday that drivers in the point-to-point (P2P) transport sector will get a higher amount of grants to offset their vehicle rental fees from next year.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said the move will help cushion the impact of SIRS ending.

Main taxi hirers and full-time private-hire drivers in the P2P transport sector will get $600 per vehicle each month between January and March next year, up from $300.

This will be reduced to $450 a month between April and June.

The LTA said that the Covid-19 Driver Relief Fund will cost $133 million. It replaces the Special Relief Fund, through which P2P drivers have been receiving payouts since February. About 52,000 drivers eligible for the Special Relief Fund will be automatically moved to the new fund next month.

The total assistance set aside for the sector now stands at about $380 million.

P2P drivers who receive the payouts under the new fund will not be eligible for the Covid-19 Recovery Grant for lower-to middle-income workers announced by the Ministry of Social and Family Development yesterday.

In explaining the continued payouts for drivers, the LTA said: "Despite the improving Covid-19 situation in Singapore, taxi and private-hire car ridership remains lower than pre-Covid-19 levels as tourism activities remain muted and many employees are still working from home.

"Covid-19 has also changed commuting patterns, with shorter taxi and private-hire car trips, which result in lower fares per trip."

The authority said in an update last month that ridership for taxi and private-hire cars was still at 75 per cent of pre-Covid-19 levels.

But this figure is on the higher end of estimates made by drivers and taxi companies, who have said that ridership is slightly above 66 per cent of pre-outbreak levels.

Grab driver Alex Yap, 28, said: "Tourists are important customers for us, and without them, ridership is still not as good as before the Covid-19 pandemic."

He hopes there can be a one-time payment to further support self-employed workers.

Another private-hire driver, Mr William Lim, 43, said he hopes that there will not be further increases in rental or commission fees in the near future.

Senior Minister of State for Transport Amy Khor said in a Facebook post yesterday that she has met representatives of the National Taxi Association (NTA) and the National Private Hire Vehicles Association (NPHVA) to understand their concerns. She added that she has "assured them that we will continue to support them in whatever way we can".

NTA and NPHVA said in a joint statement they were thankful for the latest support measures.

They also said they have helped about 13,000 drivers apply for the NTUC Care Fund (Covid-19) since it was launched in March. The fund provides payouts of up to $300 for hard-hit union members.