KUALA LUMPUR: The reclassification of income categories through the government's Central Database Hub (Padu) will enable the government to target Malaysians requiring government assistance effectively.
Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli said the data retrieved from Padu, once the system is fully established in January, would allow the government to retrieve more comprehensive information on household income, instead of individual income.
"Padu will have the data for each family and household, the system is also expected to have over 120 variables for households' income.
"Hence, this will allow us to shift from the previous methods (of income classification) which solely rely on income (of an individual) to an approach that takes into account the net income of a household.
"This means looking at an income that has deducted commitment, location, distance and assets which will provide a fairer distribution," he said during minister's question time in Dewan Rakyat, today.
Meanwhile, Rafizi added that the government could only look into the reclassification of income categories once Padu is established.
"(And) when we have the data based on the net household income, the methods remain the same and we will examine the distribution (of assistance) for each family and household.
"Subsequently, the government can ensure that the assistance for specific and targeted groups is more complex than the methods used before."
Rafizi said this in response to a supplementary question by Datuk Mohd Isam Mohd Isa (BN-Tampin) on whether the government was considering the reclassification of income groups based on household income, which would allow assistance to be delivered to the right group.
Meanwhile, in terms of median household income based on race, Rafizi added that the Chinese remained highest with RM8,167, followed by Indian (RM6,627) and Bumiputera (RM5,793) according to the 2022 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES).
He added that the survey also revealed that the national Poverty Line Income (PLI) value for 2022 indicated a poverty incidence of 6.2 per cent, covering 488,000 households, while the incidence of hardcore poverty was at 0.2 per cent covering 18,000 households.
"The national PLI in 2022 has also increased to RM2,589 per household in 2022 from RM2,208 in 2019.
"At the same time, the food PLI used to measure hardcore poverty for the year 2022 is RM1,198, compared to RM1,169 ringgit for the year 2019."
