Creating the unique success Story of Singapore through economic and social strategies going hand in hand, raising income and standard of living across the board

The unique Singapore story in the last 50 years has been that of broad-based social upliftment: jobs for all, rising incomes for all, homes for all, quality schools and public healthcare for all, and neighbourhoods and parks shared by all.

It's impossible for our economy to have succeeded without effective social strategies - enabling people to develop their potential through education, housing policies that provided a sense of equity, or if everyone was just doing something for themselves and we did not have a sense that we were moving up together.

But it's also impossible for us to have had the very substantial and broad-based improvement in social well-being and life satisfaction without a vibrant economy - and real incomes going up across the whole span of the workforce.

For both low-income and middle-income Singaporeans, real incomes have increased by five to six times since 1965.

Economic and social strategies have gone hand in hand, and that's what created the Singapore story.

Excerpt from:
The Economic Society of Singapore SG50 Distinguished Lecture by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam