New series on how the Budget helped Singaporeans?

I refer to the article “$ The Budget and me” (Straits Times, Feb 13).

Increase in Workfare?

It states that “Having $200 more in your pocket might not sound much to some, but it proved a huge bonus for security guard  Wong Seow Eng (age 61) last year.

Mr Wong’s 16-year-old son was in Secondary 4 and had a chance at getting into polytechnic, but  the lack of a computer at home was a concern. Cash was tight but help came in the form of a higher Workfare payment.

Workfare helped to buy $1,600 computer?

With the Workfare payment and savings, Mr Wong managed to buy a new desktop for his son last year. It cost him $1,600″.

When I read the above, my impression was that he received $200 more a month which helped him to buy the $1,600 computer.

$177 cash Workfare for the whole year?

But, when I used the Workfare calculator to enter his age and pay ($1,800) – what I got was that he only received $177 in cash for the whole year of 2013, and $261 to CPF.

So, the cash of $177  or just less than $15 a month for the whole year of 2013, was of significant help to him to buy the $1,600 computer?

Dropped to 150th Press Freedom ranking? 

If this is the best kind of example that we can come up with, to promulgate the propaganda that we are helping Singaporeans in a big way – is it any wonder that our Press Freedom ranking has just dropped another notch to 150th?

Leong Sze Hian