The Ministry of the Interior will present a plan redefining poverty by the middle of next year so that more people would have access to social welfare, the ministry’s top official said yesterday
Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said that government support to low-income households was inadequate, with an increasing number of people joining the ranks of the so-called “new poor” who do not qualify for the government’s social welfare programs.
The “new poor” are defined as people with working skills who are in dire financial straits because they have lost their jobs, he said.
One of the ministry’s tasks will be to find a way to define poverty so that the “new poor” will also be covered by government subsidy programs for low-income families, said the minister, who assumed office on Sept. 10.
The ministry defines the low-income population as people whose monthly income falls 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 NT$11,309, and in Kinmen and Matsu NT$7,400.
Ministry statistics showed that the low-income population rose to 241,237 in the second quarter of the year, an increase of more than 17,300 from the previous quarter.
This represented 1.29 percent of the total population, the highest in recorded history, the ministry said.
Asked about the nation’s falling birth rate, Jiang said that rather than offering incentives for people to have more children, he would try to determine why they were reluctant to do so.
“Subsidies are not the right solution to this problem,” he said.
Ministry statistics showed that the number of newborns last year was 196,486, dropping below 200,000 for the first time.
A US research survey published last month showed that Taiwan has the world’s lowest fertility rate, with an average of one child per woman, with the rate still declining.
The survey by the Population Reference Bureau in Washington showed that Taiwan registered only eight births per 1,000 population this year, the lowest in the world.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS