Minimum-wage workers in Taipei can only afford 5 percent of the places for rent in the city and most of them are single rooms in shared apartments, research conducted by the Taiwan Labor Front (TLF) found.
Taipei has the least houses for rent that people earning a NT$22,000 per month minimum wage can afford, followed by New Taipei City at 18 percent, TLF director of research Hung Ching-shu (洪敬舒) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Tainan, at 60 percent, has the most affordable accommodation, he said.
The researchers defined monthly rent of NT$6,600 or below as affordable for minimum-wage workers, because it is generally considered reasonable to spend no more than 30 percent of one’s income on rent, Hung said.
Of the houses that are affordable in Taipei and New Taipei City, 80 percent are single rooms in shared apartments and 23.8 percent are rooftop structures that were added onto buildings after construction, he said.
Contrary to the belief that rooftop structures are cheaper, the study found them to be more expensive and less safe due to the materials that are often used to build them, he added.
For the same price, renters in Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung are likely to be able to afford a studio apartment, he said.
While Taipei and New Taipei City are more expensive to live in, cities in southern Taiwan tend to have more restrictions, Hung said.
For examples, landlords are more likely to require their tenants to be women, employed and without pets or to ban them from cooking in the apartment, he said.
The findings highlight the need for the government to improve the way it determines the minimum wage to improve people’s quality of life, TLF president Tsai Pei-yuen (蔡培元) said, adding that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) promised to pass such a law when she was running for president in 2015, but the Ministry of Labor has not yet put forward a draft.
Ensuring that workers have a decent place to live would improve the quality of their work and benefit the economy, Tsuei Ma Ma Foundation chief executive officer Lu Ping-yi (呂秉怡) said.
The government should curb soaring housing prices by increasing transparency in the housing market, and introducing tax reforms and other measures, he said.
The research was based on places advertised on the housing and property Web site 591.com.tw between April 24 and May 11, TLF said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
RSS