B. ADEQUACY OF SOCIAL SECURITY RETIREMENT BENEFITS Adequacy of retirement benefits is defined as 50 percent replacement rate of final drawn salary (Lee 2001). Even for workers who are covered by at least one social security retirement program, the adequacy of their post-retirement financial resources is an important issue as money accumulated or received could be deemed inadequate. A survey conducted by the EPF on the pattern of expenditure of contributors who had withdrawn all their savings since taking retirement in order to cover expenditure on basic needs, excluding medical care for catastrophic illnesses, is between RM 510 to RM 1,000 per month6 (Rusma 2004). With the high cost of living, even this amount is barely enough. The revised income poverty line in 2008 for Peninsular Malaysia is RM 7207 per month, RM 830 per month in Sarawak and RM 960 per month in Sabah. A newspaper report written by Nizam (2007a) indicated that EPF has an accumulated savings of RM 224 billion up to December 2006. However, on average, each contributor will only receive RM 114,000 upon retirement at the age of 55. This means that each retiree will have an income of only RM 475 per month until the age of 75 years old, an amount that is significantly lower than the national regional poverty lines. In a recent survey undertaken by Prudential Assurance Malaysia Bhd. on 1,038 respondents covering the area of Klang Valley, Penang, Ipoh, Johor Bharu, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu, it was found that only 35 percent of the respondents are confident that the EPF and personal savings are sufficient to support their life when they retire (Chong 2007). The inadequacy of retirement expenses is evident to the low-income groups, forcing them to seek different avenues and security mechanisms for their retirement. This is confirmed by a study by Ragayah (ca. 2003) who found that more than half of the respondents (58.4 percent) are covered by insurance and this includes 23.1 percent of the low-income group. There are so many reasons that could be associated with inadequacy of retirement benefits. Among them, as cited by Ramesh (2005:198) are the pre-retirement withdrawals for a range of purposes which reduces the sum available for retirement, low returns, absence of redistributive mechanisms, early age of withdrawal (retirement age) and lump-sum benefits of accumulated savings at retirement. As mentioned earlier, while the main objective of the EPF is to assist with retirement income, the fund itself allows for withdrawals for housing, medical as well as pre-retirement benefits that may deplete some members’ accumulated savings by the time of their retirement, a typical administration of a provident fund. Lee (2001) proposed that purchases of houses should be left off to private banks. From an interview with the EPF Deputy CEO (Management and Organizational Development) withdrawal of EPF accumulated savings for house purchase could be considered as a positive expense for pre-retirement as the house is seen as an asset to the elderly. A sentiment shared by Haim, as reported in Nizam (2007b p.4), that withdrawal for housing is an investment manifestation in terms of asset to ensure a good life during retirement. Overall, withdrawals for housing have shown an increase over time. This is due to the easiness of the withdrawal schemes allowed by EPF. In addition, this situation is also in parallel with the government’s wish to encourage ownership of houses/property. For SOCSO, the fact that the scheme has the policy of ‘once a member, always a member’ really helps the low income employee to rely on SOCSO for benefits, especially work compensated benefits. And the fact that the income has been increased to RM 3,000 has covered even a bigger proportion of the labor force. SOCSO has been known to providing work related compensation to workers. Nevertheless, the complaints against SOCSO have always been related to the delays in processing claims. Realizing this, SOCSO has introduced payment of claimed savings within three working days for temporary disability benefit and corpse management benefit.
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