 The government argued that having such exemptions would actually help the higher-income more than poorer Singaporeans, because well-off households usually spend much more on essentials (whether food or healthcare or other basic necessities) than a lower-income household.In addition, lower-income households would not benefit much from such an exemption, as spending on essentials constitutes a small proportion of lower-income household expenditures.For example, for the bottom 20% of households, essential food items comprised only 6% of their total household expenditures; after including all other food items, the total was only 15% of their expenditures.