The Failure of Social Security in Alleviating Poverty in Hong Kong

Abstract

This paper reviews results of different researches on Hong Kong's poverty problem in the 1990s and suggests the level of benefit of the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme (CSSA) is not adequate to raise the poor out of poverty but creates and maintains a poverty trap for the recipients. The paper argues that the residual approach of the government's welfare philosophy is a failure rather than a success in fighting against poverty.