Career training under the government's welfare and subsidy scheme should help boost the income for 1.56 million recipients by a total of 26 billion baht, says a senior official at the Finance Ministry.
Since the job training courses for low-income earners who hold welfare smartcards started early last year, 4.14 million of the 11.4 million welfare recipients have signed up for the job training programme, and 3.26 million have taken the courses.
The Finance Ministry monitored 2.6 million of the 3.26 million smartcard holders who attended the programme and found 115,000 earned an annual income above the 100,000-baht threshold, while 1.45 million had income above 30,000 baht a year, but not exceeding 100,000 baht.
The remaining 1.04 million still earned 30,000 baht a year or less, said Lavaron Sangsnit, director-general of the Fiscal Policy Office.
The cabinet earlier this week gave the nod to allocating 4.37 billion baht from the fiscal 2019 central budget to fund a proposed extension of the job training programme for those holding welfare smartcards. The extension is for the six months to June.
The job training scheme was previously carried out from March to December of last year as an incentive for low-income earners receiving welfare to obtain new knowledge and skills in jobs designed to help them supplement their income.
Those who attended the training were given 100 or 200 baht more per month in monthly living allowance, depending on their actual income.
People earning less than 30,000 baht a year received 200 baht a month after training, while those earning more than 30,000 up to 100,000 baht a year received 100 baht a month.
The cabinet also approved allowing 11.4 million welfare smartcard holders to withdraw cash from banks to buy any goods they want. Those who earn a monthly living allowance of 300 baht are eligible for a 200-baht cash withdrawal and those earning 200 baht can withdraw 100 baht in cash.
Mr Lavaron said the welfare smartcards allow the government to create a database of low-income earners and registration will change the recipients' qualification to family income instead of individual income, to better direct assistance to those in need.
