The 2014 Budget announced by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak brings no good news to young Malaysians. How it affects our netizens. Young Malaysians trilemma not addressed I have previously highlighted that young people in Malaysia today are faced with the following trilemma: 1) Youth unemployment is high at 10.3% and the highest number of unemployed persons are those between age 20-24 being 40% of the total unemployed in the country. 2) Youth underemployment is serious, at about 15.1%, facing problems such as low pay, 82.5% of young people age 30 and below earn less than RM3,000 a month. 3) Brain drain is high among young people, 2 out of 10 degree holders migrate to OECD countries and Singapore in search of better opportunities. This situation is made worse by the problem of high indebtedness among young people where 47% of young workers spent 30% or more of their monthly income to service debts. 2014 Budget is a rerun of a bad soap The 2014 Budget does not provide any new strategy to resolve the socioeconomic problems of young Malaysians especially in the areas of jobs and debt. It repeats old programmes to rescale, upscale and retrain which have been the buzzwords in previous years as well. If such programmes had worked, the above trilemma would not have existed. Five reasons why 2014 Budget is bad for young Malaysians Not only the Budget has no strategy to deal with their problems, it is a double whammy against young Malaysians. Firstly, the introduction of the new goods and services tax (GST) at 6% will affect young Malaysians the most because they are generally the target of consumerism. Secondly, 82.5% of young Malaysians earn below RM3,000 monthly, thus they did not need to pay income tax previously. Hence the expansion of the tax bracket and the new income tax exemption for those earning RM4,000 and below do not bring any new benefit to the majority of young people. Thirdly, through the GST, while previously they did not need to pay income tax, young Malaysians now will have to pay the new tax, estimated to be about RM660 (projection for those earning about RM2,500 a month) and may reach up to RM1,000 a year. Even with the increase of BR1M, the net effect is still that young Malaysians will be poorer through paying the new tax. Fourthly, the abolishment of the sugar subsidy means a double whammy against young people who now also have to pay more for food and beverages. Fifthly, for young Malaysians in Sabah and Sarawak, the implementation of GST, and the abolishment of subsidy along with the existing sabotage policy will result in worse price increase in these states compared to the peninsula. The cost of transportation, including air fare, will also increase and this will add new burdens to those living in Sabah and Sarawak who are dependent on air travel for their socio-economic activities. It is clear that the 2014 Budget is sad news for young Malaysians. We are becoming the victims of a federal government who is now forced to implement austerity measures due to years of mismanagement and corruption. – October 26, 2013. *Steven Sim is the Member of Parliament for Bukit Mertajam. *This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 03:18:00 +0000
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