I decided to pick the topic of income inequality and poverty in Singapore because it has always fascinated me how an affluent country like Singapore deals with income inequality and poverty. Initially, before I was exposed to all the information and news about income inequality and poverty in Singapore, I believed that Singapore was as close to perfect as a country could get. With great education, healthcare, infrastructure and many other things, I thought the country would not have any form of poverty. The places I visited were also well developed, such as shopping malls in Marina Bay Sands, where there were absolutely no signs of poverty. Because of that, I have become blinded to the issues of income inequality and poverty in Singapore.

However, after being in UWC for several years now, I have come to realise how the problems with income inequality and poverty in Singapore have been swept under the carpet. I have learned about issues and problems in the country which I never knew existed and it has brought upon me a huge paradigm shift, realising that Singapore still has a few problems left to solve when it comes to income inequality and poverty. Because of this, my view of this country has changed. My daily activities have been altered slightly, where I am starting to notice areas that require fixing in the Singaporean community. For example, I once walked by a HDB void deck and realised the sad and tired looks on the faces of the people living there. Although they had a roof over their head and food on the table, it made me realise that there is a significant level of inequality in Singapore. I realised that although these people were not living under poverty, their lives were more difficult compared to the wealthier. These people could potentially be living paycheck to paycheck, or even worse, completely unemployed.

This sparked my interest to learn more about this topic, by looking into potential causes of income inequality and poverty, the community perspective on such issues, and ways the issue could be solved. After doing more research, I realised that there are several layers to this issue where a one size fits all answer would not be suitable. This then made me realise that my knowledge and understanding of concepts in the IB Global Politics course could come in handy, and when applied correctly to the issue of income inequality and poverty here in Singapore, potential answers could be drawn.