Who can afford to live here?

Reuters ran a good story last week on income inequality in Singapore. So did Malaysia's Star a couple of weeks back.

With the casinos, the Formula 1, the glitz and the stars, many people we speak to are worried that Singapore will soon be a place only for the rich.

Here are some interesting stats:
"Manual workers, again at the bottom of the payout scale, are likely to get a merit raise of 3.7 per cent in 2008, compared to 3 per cent in 2007".
from "Bigger but unequal pay gains seen for '08" (BT, Nov 19)

"the proportion of Singapore residents earning less than S$1,000 (US$690) a month rose to 18 percent last year, from 16 percent in 2002, central bank data released late last month show"
&
Singapore's Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, has worsened from 42.5 in 1998 to 47.2 in 2006, and is now in league with the Philippines (46.1) and Guatemala (48.3), and worse than China (44.7), data from Singapore's Household Survey and the World Bank show"
from the Reuters report

Damn. We should have bought an apartment five years ago...