KUALA LUMPUR – The government should consider handing RM1,000 to each household in the B40 and M40 groups, said Umno information chief Shahril Hamdan.
He said providing this aid is “reasonable” to ensure households have sufficient cash to ride out the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Sometimes, what is needed (by the households) is not something that is sophisticated. Sometimes, the solution is straightforward. It only requires confidence and bravery,” he said in a statement today.
“Since the start of the pandemic, I have stressed on this matter of fiscal spending but there is no will (by the government) because there is a fear of government debt, hesitancy with regards to certain laws (but there is an emergency?), fear of ratings, inflation and other matters that are of less importance to the problem at hand.
“Imagine if sufficient assistance was given from early on.”
He said with the RM1,000 assistance to be distributed every month for three months, there were no large risks of inflation, adding there would not be a sudden surge in “aggregate demand” and inflation.
“Any current price hikes would be caused by supply bottlenecks, not because the people have too much money.
“See how other countries handle this issue. Why are they willing to spend? Why are they willing to put money in people’s pockets without being tied to conventional ideologies?”
Shahril said the current cash handouts, such as the RM350 for single individuals over three months, or RM1,800 for the B40 group over seven months, were insufficient.
He added that data from the Statistics Department on salaries last year was “worrying” as average wages have dropped by 9% to RM2,993, while the median has dropped 15% to RM2,062.
This, he said, means that 9.8 million Malaysian workers earned below RM2,062 a month.
The government, he said, can implement more permanent policies, such as job bank schemes, employment guarantees, or universal basic income, where there is a mechanism for the government to add to the people’s incomes.
Shahril added that the government can also conduct studies on laws limiting the ratio of the top-tier earners and those in bottom-income groups. – The Vibes, July 14, 2021
