Highlights of the Year 2020-21

Improvement Measure To The CSSA Scheme

In February 2021, the Government fully implemented a series of measures to improve the CSSA Scheme as announced in the Chief Executive's 2019 Policy Address. These measures include enhancing the employment support services; increasing the maximum rent allowance for different household sizes by approximately 3% to 27% as a one-off measure; raising the maximum level of disregarded earnings from $2,500 to $4,000 per month and increasing the maximum level of earnings to be totally disregarded from a new job from the first month's income to a maximum of the first 2 month's income every 2 years; and extending a range of supplement and special grants to eligible non-elderly able-bodied recipients.

Temporary Relaxation Of CSSA Asset Limits For Able-Bodied Persons

Having considered the adverse impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the economy, the Government provided time-limited unemployment support through the CSSA system by temporarily relaxing the CSSA asset limits by 100% for able-bodied persons during a 12-month period from 1 June 2020 to 31 May 2021.

Provision Of Additional One-Off Assistance To Social Security Recipients

To ease the financial burden of the public, the Government provided 1 additional month of standard rate to CSSA recipients, and 1 additional month of allowance to recipients of Old Age Allowance (OAA) [including OAA under the Guangdong (GD) Scheme and Fujian (FJ) Scheme], Old Age Living Allowance (OALA) (including OALA under the GD Scheme and FJ Scheme) and Disability Allowance under the Social Security Allowance Scheme in June 2020.