Singaporeans spent 68 percent of annual CPF contributions on housing
March 30th, 2010 | 
Author: Written by Our Correspondent
A paper presented by an NUS social graduate Ng Kok Hoe at a Seminar on the Aged yesterday questioned if Singaporeans have sufficient CPF savings for their retirement, the Straits Times reported.
Mr Ng’s presentation revealed that “a Singaporean would draw between 8 per cent and 26 per cent of his last drawn salary from the CPF at age 65.” and that “68 per cent of annual CPF contribution is spent on housing, while health took up 18 per cent and pensions 14 per cent.”
Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Dr Vivian Balakrishnan who was at the seminar said there was no “perfect” balance to how CPF should be spent.
He added that Singaporeans had “by and large got it right so far” without substantiating his claims.
Singaporeans are allowed to use their savings in CPF ordinary account to pay for housing loans.
More than 85 percent of Singaporeans live in HDB flats built by the government.
Though the government claims they are “heavily subsidized”, the prices of HDB flats have sky-rocketed in recent years.
As such, an increasing proportion of Singaporeans’ CPF monies are tied up with the housing loans leaving little for their retirement.
Dr Vivian said one should not “discount” the equity tied up in housing as “there are schemes which allow Singaporeans to sublet their homes or downsize for cash, letting them ‘extract liquidity out of equity.”
Under a new scheme introduced last year, Singaporeans are allowed to “sell” their HDB flats back to HDB in return for a monthly sum of allowance for 30 years while they continue to live in their flats.
With more and more Singaporeans entering retirement age, there are concerns that they may not have sufficient CPF monies for their retirement and end up being a burden to the state.
Despite being the second richest country in Asia after Japan, Singaporeans enjoy few social welfare benefits from the nanny state which has constantly espoused the “virtues” of “self-reliance” and eschewed “welfarism”.
Singaporeans are expected to work for as long as it takes till they drop dead and die while competing directly with cheap foreign workers and remaining “cheaper, better and faster” at the same time.
In the meantime, the state has no qualms losing billions of dollars of national reserves through its two gigantic sovereign wealth funds in failed overseas investments.
There is little Singaporeans can do about their plight as their political and civil rights are curtailed by a series of repressive laws put in place by a despotic regime to perpetuate its political hegemony forever.
Posted in Editorial
Heavily subsidized to build but since those kind of things aren’t passed down the chain, it really doesn’t matter!
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He can be the next MP for singaporeans…
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In 1960s. We crave for nationality identity. We crave for the right to govern ourselves. We wants our voices to be heard!!
In 2000s, we still crave for nationality identity, we still crave for a righteous ruling party, and we still sought the freedom of speech
We had welcome in a pack of wolves to drive out an arrogant lion.
Are we better off then in 1960s???
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The Government auctions the land and gets the best price. Singaporean pays 68% of their CPF for their housing. So a typical Singaporean spends his entire life feeding this government who then, amongst the other things it does, pays its minister multi million dollar salaries.
Do you feel like you are a rat in a cage running a treadmill of endless cycles, for this Government?
I put it to you in The Matrix terms:
Wake up from your slumber. Do not be a battery feeding the system. Take the RED PILL!
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//Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said there was no “perfect” balance to how CPF should be spent..
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My dear Vivian…
please don’t act like a DEAF FROG!
After 45 years, no perfect balance???
There must be CPF statistic and ramdom walk on various CPF members needs and requirements whether for housing/mortgage financing, retirement or medisave.
Vivian, you are acting like a kid!
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If MBT can said HDB is affordable, there must be statistic and figures from CPF Board. CPF Board took calculates retirement balance and medisave to finally, leaving a substantial amount which is for HDB financing…otherwise how MBT consider as “affordable.”
Vivian, silly boy is sleeping….zzzzzzzzz
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The paper will make an interesting read. It would be nice if TR is able to obtain the paper. A search on Google yield no results.
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Thanks to the goverment, i am still single. Because of my meagre salary, i think it will be hard to fin a wife. It is so hard to find a good paying jobs nowadays with so many foreign workers taking up so many across all sectors so cheaply.
Thanks to the goverment on the above, my CPF will be parked safely without using them to buy flat.
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Ng Kok Hoe
Local Merit Scholarship (MCYS)
BSocSci, Social Work (Hons), National University of Singapore
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Dr Vivian said one should not “discount” the equity tied up in housing as “there are schemes which allow Singaporeans to sublet their homes or downsize for cash, letting them ‘extract liquidity out of equity.”
I thought the PM just said all profits from sales of flats will go back to the CPF??
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Mr Ng will be another Vivian by and by.
The truth in this seemingly ‘GLOBALISED’ world where transparency is a by-word,it is indeed strange and incomprehensible to an ordinary guy like me to note that whilst the RICH and POWERFUL insists on lower WAGE COSTS for the people working for them,their own pay-packets seem to be getting fatter and fatter.
Do they mean that their own pay is not part of WAGE COST?
wHAT happen to the practice of FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING?
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1. Apa makes his children his customers for his business once they start working.
2. Then when his children have children too… they also become grandapa’s customers!!!… Except of course the YES-grandapa ones who will join his ranks as complaint managers to sing-song-talk-cock to the rest of the grand children to be hard-driving and hard-striving as IT IS aLL for their own good!!!
3. And so on and so forth… till ONLY great grand octogenarian apa or “cho-kong” is the ONLY boss of the ONLY real company in the hairy land!!!
4. And so is this the la la land of ‘famiLIE’ enterprise inc. that the majority of the people are slaves NOT ONLY UNTO their own but in reality for the greater-talents of grandapa’s ‘managers of enterprise’ and favorites who become wealthy by association???
Folks… you ARE part of a greater and better famiLIE… BE thankful and proud too of it… DO NOT COMPLAIN AND GROUSE… just revert to The Mentality of an ah Beng & an Ah Lian and YOU WILL BE HIGHLY GRATIFIED in HEAVILY-SUBSIDIZED GRATITUDE!!!
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CPF can also be used to pay for your son’s study loan
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Wayne, dun blame CPF or Gov if you can’t find a wife. Most of the woman in singapore still married somebody, just not you.
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Yeah, no need to buy flat, then need to sleep like a refugee at changi. You need permits and when you get one too many, they chased you out to pasir ris and then west coast, so you cannot look “bad” in a country of all “good”
Great country, better to migrate to kiwi land, there is no need for permits. There, a sheep or calf will wake you in the morning with a good lick in the face, but here, its the “shity police”
I wonder if any of you understand that when the time for collecting your minimum sum of 600 or 900, it’ll be there.
Annuity may have incurred a loss if a period of 2-5 years and you may get shity sum. Please get someone not in cpf to explain to you. The so called annuity sum, is not a guarantee amount, reason why manpower minister, another asshole of ms lim said, anyone with minimum 60k will be automatically signed on. Yet, no financial advisor or institution is making noise. They want to milk you but they don’t want to be the bad boy in town. Remember lky said all who invested in minibond, had walk in with eyes open.
This bloody gov is all out to fleece and milk you dry.
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REDAS President Simon Cheong even poo-poohed at the Gahmen for interfering in market forces of private residential property market because it affects only 16.5% of population!
How much CPF money is in private property considering the huge price differential between HDB and private property prices?
If 16.5% of the population could be summarily dismissed and discounted, then why do we bother about minority rights of Malays, Indians and Eurasians?
The Pariah, http://www.singaporeenbloc.blogspot.com
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Those who attain the age of 55 years and above and decide to park their money in CPF just to gain a higher interest instead of withdrawing the whole sum and buy annuity must bear in mind that all that sum in CPF can be locked in at anytime with a stroke of a pen.
They will live to regret for the rest of their lives.
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FAP Ministers’ salaries are also highly subsidized.
They could easily have been Warren Buffets or Bill Gates of the world but they chose to serve Singaporeans humbly for only two plates of char kway teow.
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Ha K, that what i always said…
Teo 4luck so handsome, can be football star like david beckham, can earn tens of million every year, but stay in sing to work for the ppl.
LHL, so tall, can be basketball star like yaoming, earn hundreds of million playing in nba, but stay in sing to work for the ppl.
Goh CT, so good playing golf, can be like tiger woods, 1st billion sport star, but stay in sing to work for the ppl.
I propose to sing government to peg the minister pay to not just the top CEOs in sing, but to every top professions in the world. We should all give credit where its due.
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Stop complaining… next election result will still be the same… strong mandate to PAP…
put ur cross on the ballot paper where ur mouth is.
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