Everything About the $1,500 to $3,000 Workfare Special Payment Given to 470K S’poreans This Month

By
Sarah Lee
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From 28 October onwards, 470,000 lower-income Singaporean workers will receive their Workfare Special Payment (WSP).

About $810 million will be given out in total under the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) scheme.

Now, you must be wondering: are you entitled to it?

Here’s a brief background about this scheme for a better understanding.

Everything About the $1,500 to $3,000 Workfare Support Grant Given to 470K S’poreans This Month

In March 2020, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, announced that lower-income workers will receive payouts under the WIS scheme.

This was one of the measures under the Care and Support Package as part of the Resilience Budget.

400,000 workers were eligible for the scheme.

For those who qualify, they received a payout of $1,500 in July for their work done in 2019.

They will be receiving another $1,500 cash payout this month.

This payout is known as the Workfare Special Payment (WSP) under the WIS scheme, which already provides payouts for low-income working adults.

On 17 August 2020, Mr Heng announced that the eligibility for the WSP would be widened to include 70,000 more workers, with a grand total of 470,000 workers eligible for this scheme.

The 70,000 workers who are eligible are those who received the WIS for work done in 2020, and who are not already receiving the WSP.

This group of workers will receive a one time off pay-out of $3,000 this month.

Image: Instagram (Heng Swee Keat)

Those that are eligible and have government registered bank accounts will receive the pay-out on October 28.

While for the rest, the cheque pay-out will be mailed to them by November 15.

What is WIS?

The aim of the WIS is to help the bottom 20% of the workforce. The scheme covers both Singaporean employees and self-employed workers.

According to the Ministry of Finance (MOF), the WIS is paid in the form of CPF top-ups for retirement and cash to supplement earned income.

Some changes were made to the eligibility criteria this year, which include raising the qualifying income cap from $2,000 to $2,300 per month.

In order to be eligible for the scheme, one must fulfil the following requirements:

  • Individual is a Singapore Citizen
  • Individual is 35 years old or above on 31 December of the work year
  • Individual is earning a gross monthly income of not more than $2,300 for the month worked, as well as during the past 12 months
  • Individual has declared net trade income and made MediSave contributions (For self employed workers)

And in case you’re confused, the WIS is something that’ll be paid out every year.

The WSP is only given this year to people in WIS, and WSP is in cold hard cash.

Unless COVID-19 is still here in Singapore in 2021 lah, then maybe there’ll be one more WSP next year.

Just think of WSP as a top-up to WIS lah.

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Sarah Lee
Email: [email protected]