Lower-income workers in Singapore can receive their Workfare Special Payment payouts from Oct 28, said the Ministry of Finance on Friday (Oct 23). A cash payout of S$3,000 will be disbursed for each eligible recipient.
First announced by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat in the Resilience Budget, the payment aims to provide greater assurance and support to Singaporeans who need more help during the uncertain COVID-19 period.
In his ministerial statement on Aug 17, Mr Heng, who is also finance minister, said eligibility for the Workfare Special Payment would be widened to include more than 70,000 additional workers who receive Workfare Income Supplement for their work done in 2020, and who are not already receiving Workfare Special Payments.
These 70,000 additional workers will receive the full Workfare Special Payment payout of S$3,000 from this month. This brings the total number of lower-income Singaporean workers who receive additional support from the Budget 2020 scheme to about 470,000. About S$810 million in total will be disbursed to Singaporean workers in October, Channel News Asia reported.
Most of these workers would have qualified for the Workfare Special Payments earlier and received their first payment of S$1,500 in July, for their work done in 2019. They will receive their final S$1,500 this month, which will be directly credited to their bank account on Oct 28, or through a cheque mailed to their residential address by Nov 15.
Eligible workers who have registered their mobile numbers with SingPass will receive details via SMS on Oct 26, or by letters the same week. No response is required and recipients will not be asked to provide any information to the SMS from SG-Workfare, said MOF.
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