Taiwan is facing growing poverty among elderly households as people aged 65 or older with a near-poor background have multiplied over the past decade, a report from the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said yesterday.
The report urged the government to address elderly poverty.
Citing the “Report on the Survey of Family Income and Expenditure” from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), it said the average annual disposable income per household in the top quintile was NT$2.3 million (US$71,801) last year, a 2.6 percent increase from the previous year, while the figure in the bottom quintile was NT$376,000, up by 3.0 percent, indicating an income difference of 6.12 times between the two groups.
Photo: Taipei Times
People aged 65 or older made up 25.96 percent of heads of household last year, up by 12.68 and 0.9 percentage points from 2001 and 2022 respectively, with those in the lowest quintile rising from 40.71 percent in 2001 to 63.62 percent last year, DGBAS data showed.
That suggested household heads aged 65 or older in the quintile of the lowest household income is increasing and has exceeded 60 percent of the quintile, the DGBAS data showed.
The report also showed the average household size was 2.79 people last year, with an average disposable income of NT$1.14 million and an average expenditure of NT$861,300.
For households whose head was aged 65 or older, the average household size was 1.92 people, with an average disposable income of NT$724,400 and an average expenditure of NT$621,800 — all lower than the average figures, it said.
The bottom quintile of households with a head aged 65 or older consisted of 1.16 million households, accounting for 49 percent of all households headed by a person 65 or older with an average disposable income of NT$356,200, which is less than their average expenditure of NT$393,400 at a difference of NT$37,800, it cited the report as saying.
About half of households with a head aged 65 or older had lower annual disposable income than their expenditure last year, and the income-expenditure difference is worryingly greater than that of the whole, it said.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Health and Welfare data showed that among all low to middle-income households, 23.45 percent had a head aged 45 to 64 and 23.38 percent had a head aged 65 or older last year, both a new high in the past 10 years.
Among all low-income households, those headed by a person 65 or older accounted for a record 17.67 percent in the past decade, it showed.
People aged 65 or older from a low to middle or low-income households have multiplied from 2014 and amounted to 64,740 people last year, the ministry said, calling for the government to pay attention to older people with economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
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