Nearly 200,000 self-employed receive $1.8b in payouts

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."