Government to Start New Sign-ups for Welfare Card Scheme in March

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The Finance Ministry is planning to start accepting new applications for the Government Welfare Card scheme in March of next year. This follows the last application period which ran from September 5 to October 31 in 2022. The ministry reviews participant eligibility every two years.

 

Right now, the number of people registered for the scheme has gone down from 14.9 million to about 13.5 million, partly due to deaths. The rules for who can get a card are expected to stay the same as they were in previous rounds.

 

To be eligible for the Government Welfare Card, a person or family has to meet certain requirements. Applicants have to be Thai citizens who are 18 and older, and they can't earn more than 100,000 baht a year. Family-wise, the average income per family member also can't exceed 100,000 baht a year.

 

Financial possessions like savings, bonds, and financial documents can't go above 100,000 baht per person or family each year. Plus, applicants also cannot own too much property or land as set by the Finance Ministry, or own credit cards, or have housing loans past 1.5 million baht, or car loans above 1 million baht.

Certain people aren't eligible for the card, such as monks, novices, prisoners, people in welfare homes, those in government jobs, retired people, and politicians, including Members of Parliament (MPs) and senators.

 

The benefits from the card are mostly going to stay the same, unless the government makes any new policies. Right now, the benefits are: 300 baht per person each month for buying goods, 750 baht per person monthly for public transport, a 80 baht reduction every three months on cooking gas, 100 baht reduction in monthly water bills for each household, and a 315 baht reduction in monthly electricity bills for each household.

 

The budget to cover these benefits is about 4.8 billion baht monthly, or about 50 billion baht each year.

 

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-- 2024-10-07