The stallholder retirement match (optional ask, costed and left for later)

The Protection Floor (§2.11) proposes that someone pays into the hawker's own CPF retirement savings, as a platform now does for a rider. The plan costs the match but does not yet ask for it. It is for stallholders under 55: from 55 the Matched Retirement Savings Scheme already matches cash top-ups, up to $2,000 a year, so the plan helps hawkers claim it rather than paying twice. The base case is a match of up to $1,200 a year for each public-centre stallholder under 55 (about 6,900 stalls in all, by our estimate): up to about $4.1M a year, a ceiling that assumes every one takes it up in full. The stretch case reaches every stallholder under 55, coffeeshops and food courts included, at 70% take-up, with shared hospital-cash cover for stallholders of every age: about $7.9M a year. No match is paid in Years 1–3, not even at the Lighthouses; it starts only if and when adopted, rolls out nationally from Year 4 and reaches full take-up in Year 7. Three sources could meet part of the cost outside the Budget: gifts set aside (half of the continuing gifts the programme does not need), 40% of Heritage Plate licence income, and the tender rent HDB forgoes, which is HDB's contribution, phases in as coffeeshops are re-tendered and counts only for the stretch. Over Years 4–10 about $10.9M is left unpaid for the base and about $28.6M for the stretch with HDB's contribution (about $33.2M without it). At three centres about two-thirds of the continuing gifts is spent, so about $0.7M a year can be set aside; with half set aside the corpus ends Year 20 at about 106% of target, against about 133% with none. The endowment cannot carry the match alone: at a 3.5% draw the base would need a corpus of about $120M, three times the $40M target (§7.9).

Who pays

BUILDS ON

What it costs

Base up to ≈$4.1M/yr SGD · a year

(every public-centre stallholder under 55 taking it up); stretch ≈$7.9M/yr (all stallholders under 55 at 70% take-up, with shared hospital-cash cover)

What it builds on

Matched Retirement Savings from 55, which the plan helps hawkers claim; the contribution a platform operator makes for a rider (Hawkers and Social Protection, C.6, §2.11.1, §2.11.2).

The ask of Government

Decision

Stallholder retirement match – Government matches stallholders' own CPF top-ups, up to $1,200 a year, under 55; from 55, hawkers are helped to claim the existing Matched Retirement Savings Scheme, if they pass its income and home tests (§2.11.1 and §2.11.2); decision left for later (Hawkers and Social Protection, C.8.1)

Instrument

Budget line, administered by CPF Board and MOM

Fiscal cost

Base up to ≈$4.1M/yr (every public-centre stallholder under 55 taking it up); stretch ≈$7.9M/yr (all stallholders under 55 at 70% take-up, with shared hospital-cash cover); less what giving, Heritage Plate licences and HDB's contribution cover

What it buys

Parity with the platform worker: someone shares the cost of the cook's retirement, as a platform now does for riders born in or after 1995 and for older riders who opt in. "The young rider got a CPF share. Now so does the cook."

From §7.7, Hawkers and Social Protection, C.8.1.

Who gains

Hawkers

Parity with the platform worker: someone shares the cost of the cook's retirement (§7.7).

Government

A reversible decision, and an optional one: the plan asks for it only if Government later chooses (§7.7).