Budget 2023 strengthens Singapore’s social compact, signals time for greater self-reliance in SMEs

LOWER to middle-income earners tuning in to Finance Minister Lawrence Wong’s Budget speech on Tuesday (Feb 14) would probably have been heartened by the help in store.

A non-exhaustive list of highlights would include: higher cash payouts from the GST Voucher and Assurance Package schemes; a staggered raising of the Central Provident Fund (CPF) monthly salary ceiling, which means lower take-home pay but also higher employer contributions; and government-paid paternity leave doubling to four weeks, with the additional two weeks on a voluntary basis to start with.

But bosses of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) following the same speech would likely have been less cheery.