LETTER | Urban poverty has worsened in Malaysia and has been severely impacted by the pandemic, and Budget 2022 needs to address it fully and not provide cosmetic touches here and there to impress or give false confidence to the people.

The B40 has been hit the hardest with debts, job loss and income, whereas their 'fixed costs' have been the same. It was revealed recently that about 20 percent of the M40 have now joined the B40 club!

Urban poverty in Malaysia can be traced back to the 1970s and 80s onwards when large numbers of people left the kampungs and estates, settled down in squatter areas and found work in the growing number of SMEs.

Poor living conditions, government inaction, exploitation of workers and the lack of a minimum wage then spiralled urban poverty to become a major issue it is presently.

Urban poverty has become a major cause of social ills and will destabilise society.

Although better housing for the poor and imposition of a minimum wage have been somewhat realised over the decades, the basic cause of urban poverty still remains without an effective remedy as the minimum wage or remuneration levels are not enough to cope with the cost of living and as such education of their children, healthcare, savings for any eventuality or for social mobility have been much affected.

The government has to reassess the wages and remuneration levels in the private sector, which have been suppressed by the employment of foreign workers.

A look at the PPR flats and low-cost houses or apartments will reveal the true face of urban poverty- the poor and dirty living conditions, the vandalisation of public property all around, the defective municipal services, social ills, broken families and crime.

Children growing up in this environment will be greatly affected.

The methods of addressing urban poverty must be different from tackling rural poverty.

The rural poor can at least rely on agriculture as their source of income derived from their oil palm or rubber smallholdings or fishing or planting of crops. The urban poor has nothing to rely on and must start from square one.

Neither poverty nor prosperity is static

The government needs to come with a wide range of incentives and assistance programmes to help the urban poor, who number in the millions now, and who could destabilise the country in the future.

Apart from increasing the minimum wage, other ways to help the poor include:

• Provision of public transport and setting up small and medium enterprises and other industries where there is a high concentration of the urban poor, especially in the low and medium-cost housing areas.
• Provide temporary licences/permits for setting up small businesses in the neighbourhood.
• Enable more housewives and womenfolk to work by the government legislating for flexible working hours.
• Review some labour laws to help the lower-income group.
• Encourage local government contractors to employ locals only for a wide range of general work, thereby increasing their income.
• Urge the government and private sector to employ more of the semi-literate and physically challenged.
• Provide more social welfare programmes to help the urban poor tide over the difficulties brought about by the pandemic.

Many countries are finding success at eliminating urban poverty by improving income levels and better living conditions for the poor to ensure their social mobility to the middle class in the future.

Malaysia must eliminate racial and provincial reckonings in its programme to overcome poverty as now there are a large number of the poor amongst all races in the whole country.

Neither poverty nor prosperity is static as the status quo can change, as happened recently when a large percentage of the M40 had plummeted to poverty due to the pandemic and similarly, large numbers of the poor and lower-income groups became richer during the 1990s when the economy expanded at a rapid pace.

The government should not myopically focus on poverty as a political or racial issue but should address it as a constant socio-economic problem besetting the whole country.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.