I was reading The State Times’s article from 13 February entitled “Singapore economy grows 4.4% in 2024, but growth seen slowing to 1% to 3% in 2025″ when I came across something that sounded incongruous. It said, “Meanwhile, real median income, which excludes inflation, rose 3.4 per cent in 2024.”

This seemed unbelievably high given the fact that the domestic sectors of retail and food and beverage had negative growth in 2024. Wholesale trade grew by 5% but this may have mainly been stock building in which case it will be a negative drag on growth in 2025. The fact that domestic spending fell would point to falling and stagnant real incomes rather than rising.

Of course when I checked the original document on the Department of Statistics website I found that the real figure was much more mundane. Median household income rose by only 1.4% in real terms in 2024 and over the last 5 years by only 0.7% p.a. in real terms. However real median monthly income per household member, which normalises for household size, grew by only 0.8% in 2024, presumably because the size of households increased slightly and this increase was either non earning or earned less than the medium. Over the five years to 2024, real median monthly income per household member grew faster than real median monthly income per household, probably the result of a shrinking number of dependents rather than real income gains. This is to be expected with a Total Fertility Rate (the number of children a woman will have in her lifetime) below 1 despite the PAP’s efforts to offset the shrinking number of Singaporeans with immigrants.

I will discuss the household survey in more detail in a subsequent blog article. It’s notable that the household income figure doesn’t normalise for hours worked made up both of longer hours worked by existing wage earners as well as increases in the number of wage earners per household. Real income gains could only be because of an increase in the number of hours worked or the number of workers per household. Also the figures are for residents including PRs. One would expect PRs and new citizens to earn more than native born Singaporeans simply because earnings are one of the main selection criteria in granting PR and citizenship. I would also like to examine more closely the PAP’s claims to be providing large amounts of subsidies to Singaporeans and this being included in household income from employment. As I have shown, PAP subsidies for housing do not benefit Singaporeans but are a means of maintaining and achieving high prices for land sold to HDB, the proceeds of which go into the reserves where the benefit to the current generation of Singaporeans is minimal. The PAP maintain that it’s necessary to safeguard the reserves for future generations but it’s difficult to see how these will not be majority foreign-born. Similarly I suspect that claimed medical subsidies allow MOH Holdings, the privatised healthcare system, to charge unnecessarily high prices which allow it to make high profits. The accounts of MOH Holdings, which I obtained only with some difficulty and after paying a lot of money, show it has reserves of close to $10 billion.

Another glaring example of the way in which the PAP tries to bamboozle Singaporeans, highlighted in the Key Household Trends Report 2024, is the claim that a declining Gini coefficient shows that the income inequality is decreasing and that this is due to the large subsidies the Government provides. However the Gini is only calculated on employment income and does not include investment and interest income which will undoubtedly form the majority of the income of residents in the top decile.GE will be fought, with the PAP making unverifiable claims that people are too afraid to challenge and the rapid issue of POFMAs to try and silence the Opposition and deflect from their requirement to provide answers to basic questions of accountability.

Published by kjeyaretnam

I'm a Singaporean economist who became an opposition activist. I blog to provide an alternative to the porkies that the Pinkies tell. It just so happens that my alternative is the truth. That's why I've never been sued in any civil or criminal court no matter how hard hitting my criticism. I'm quoted and interviewed and asked to speak across the world but largely censored in Singapore in an effort to silence my political opinions. The left hate me because they think I split their vote and because I eschew their outmoded economic models. Models that don't work. The Right and the Conservatives hate me because I'm a liberal. I'm not sure what the middle think of me. I don't think there are more than a handful of people in the middle, here in Singapore. I'm a Singaporean born and bred, dual heritage, my parents Singaporean established here before the State of Singapore was created. I'm not Eurasian. I read economics at Cambridge and could be broadly described as from the Keynesian school but I believe in interventions. I was formerly a successful hedge fund manager. After economics and politics my greatest interests are history, film and Makan. I run but I run so I can eat like a Singaporean. View all posts by kjeyaretnam