Pension, cash grants, public assistance & tax threshold increase

In its bid to increase disposable income, the Government on Monday announced that the old age pension will be increased to $33,000 and the Because We Care Cash Grant for students to $40,000. The increase in the cash grant will benefit over 214,000 pupils and students in public and private schools and will place an additional $2.1 billion in the hands of their parents.

In addition, public assistance will now be $16,000, providing over $700 million in additional disposable income to these individuals.

To benefit over 12,000 workers, the Government has budgeted to increase the income tax threshold from $75,000 to $85,000 effective January 2023. This will result in a $3.3 billion increase in disposable income. At an individual taxpayer level, for illustrative purposes, this translates to an additional disposable income of $33,600 annually for every single taxpayer who is currently earning $100,000 per month.

Several other salary adjustments for different categories of workers were previously announced which will be taking effect this month. The first phase of the salary adjustments will benefit over 5,000 healthcare workers and almost 9,000 members of the Disciplined Services, resulting in an additional $3 billion in disposable income in the hands of these workers, a provision for which is made in Budget 2023.

An additional $5B was allocated for additional cost of living measures to be determined from the ongoing community engagements.

The annual Budget totalling $781.9B was tabled in the National Assembly by Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh. The budget debates commence on Monday, January 23, 2023, before it is passed with or without adjustments.