Means testing is bureaucratic and difficult

Jack Welch wants to introduce means-testing for entitlement to welfare benefits. I do not like this approach. It is better to give the same entitle to everybody, based on age, and to tax those who are well off at a higher rate to pay for the benefits.

It is bureaucratic and costly to implement means-testing, and it can have unfair results. We only need to see how it is being implemented in Singapore. The means testing is based on many criteria, such as income, type of residence, etc. Some retirees - who are not well off - found that they are staying in a landed property bought many decades ago, but are excluded from some government subsidy.