The amended Social Assistance Act (社會救助法) will take effect today, putting more families into the low-income and the newly-coined medium-to-low-income household groups.
Following the passage of revisions to the Social Assistance Act by the legislature in December last year and six months of preparation by the Ministry of the Interior, Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) announced at a press conference yesterday that the new law would become effective today, serving more people in need.
“After readjusting the thresholds, we estimate that the number of low-income households will increase from 112,000, accounting for 273,000 people, to 133,000 households, accounting for 327,000 people,” he said. “There will also be 186,000 medium-to-low-income households — or 536,000 people — benefiting from the new policy.”
He said that it would be the first time the term “medium-to-low-income families” has been written into law and become an official classification.
The number of households and people covered by the Social Assistance Act has increased because the amendments raised the poverty line, adjusted the calculation method for total household income and set more relaxed criteria for “non-capable workers,” Jiang said.
For instance, under the new system, properties owned by siblings are treated separately “since most siblings nowadays do not regularly give financial support to each other” and pregnant women would not be counted as “non-capable workers,” eligible to receive benefits under the Social Assistance Act if they meet other criteria, Jiang said.
Benefits to low-income or medium-to-low-income families include reduction of or exemption from national health insurance premiums and school tuition fees, as well as eligibility for employment assistance for up to four years.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods