Senior citizens should receive a universal pension of 3,000 baht per month to ease their financial burden, activists and academics said at a forum.
Four Regions Slum Network representative Nuken Inthachan was one of those calling for the government to revise its old age monthly allowance as a universal pension and lift it to 3,000 baht a month.
"The existing 600 to 1,000 baht subsidy for seniors citizen is barely enough, even with them finding supplementary income themselves," he said.
Mr Nuken was addressing an event organised by the Thailand Consumers Council and Thai PBS on Thursday focusing on the financial situation of the kingdom's senior citizens.
At present, the elderly are paid between 600 and 1,000 baht per month, depending on their age. Those aged 60–69 receive 600 baht; 70–79, 700 baht; 80–89, 800 baht; and those over 90 get 1,000 baht.
Theepakorn Jithitikulchai from the Faculty of Economics at Thammasat University said the pension should be given universally.
"If the allowance is given only to targeted groups like the poor, there will be many poor people who are erroneously left out of the programme," Mr Theepakorn.
He said instead of preventing such a scheme due to fear of insufficient funds, the government should instead cease offering tax deductions to the top 20% wealthiest people and start collecting from those erroneously omitted from the tax database.
He said the pensions that bureaucrats receive are far higher than those enjoyed by most members of the public, and that 3,000 baht a month would still be very challenging even just to make ends meet.
"In fact, the assistance payment could even expand to 6,000 baht per person per month if we push people to save the first 3,000 themselves and have the government top it up to 6,000 baht," Mr Theepakorn said.
Nimit Thienudom from the People's Network for the Welfare State said political parties need to be pressured to make the 3,000-baht universal pension a reality.
He said the policy is already being driven by several parties, including the Prachachat Party, Thai Sang Thai Party, and Move Forward Party.
Since 2020, his network has tried to make a national pension part of government policy. As part of that, they proposed a National Pension Bill to parliament via petition, which was supported by the signatures of over 10,000 Thais.
The proposal, though, made little headway in parliament, he said.