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Govt Push for Senior Citizens Should Get a Monthly Pension of 3,000 Baht
(CTN News) – Academics and activists urge the government to provide seniors with a universal Pension of 3,000 baht per month.
According to Four Regions Slum Network, even with additional income, the present Pension, often less than one-third of that amount per month, is insufficient for seniors to survive.
Currently, the elderly in Thailand are only given between 600 and 1,000 baht per month to help with their expenses. Depending on their age, the precise quantity will vary.
The 3,000 baht Pension for all seniors is a demand of the People’s Network for the Welfare State. They said political parties must be under pressure to act and adopt a common policy.
The idea has already received backing from several groups, including the Move Forward Party, Prachachat Party, and Thai Sang Thai Party.
The People’s Network has introduced a National Pension Bill to parliament to include a national pension in government policy from 2020.
The universal 3,000-baht pensions plan received more than 10,000 signatures on the petition, but it has not yet made any forward in parliament.
The Thammasat University Faculty of Economics proposed that the pension be distributed to everyone instead of just certain needy groups.
“Many poor individuals will be mistakenly left out of the program if the stipend is offered just to designated categories like the impoverished.”
They said that most individuals would struggle to make even 3,000 baht monthly. The professors also emphasized that officials get substantially greater monthly pensions than members of the general public do.
He recommended that authorities discontinue providing tax breaks to the richest 20% of the population rather than fretting about not having enough money in the budget to pay for pensions for the elderly.
They urged the government to tax people not already included in the tax database.
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