Happy Birthday Uncle! Now Tighten Your Belt!

After living here for ten years, I am reminded that I still have much to learn about Singapore. The headline in today's paper mentions a proposal to end the "widespread practice of cutting the pay of workers when they turn 60." The law allows a cut of up to 10%, and usually employers go to the max.

I had never heard of this practice until now. It seems positively barbaric, especially in a society that otherwise reveres the elderly. I wonder if those over 60 will have their pay raised to what it was when they were 59 years and 364 days old? Will they also get a lump sum to offset their previously reduced earnings?

No doubt the practice will end very soon. One thing I have learned is that when the government proposes something, it usually happens very quickly. I remember a similar headline soon after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, where the government told banks to "do the right thing." Banks immediately began throwing money at almost anyone who claimed to have been misled, and even billionaires were crying that they had been duped.