When the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) released its latest ComLink+ progress report on 16 December 2025, media coverage quickly highlighted one figure: almost 40% of lower-income families under ComLink+ had no member earning a regular wage at the end of 2024.
But when the report is examined alongside the 2024 edition, a deeper and more troubling picture emerges. The government’s flagship programme for uplifting vulnerable families is not showing clear improvements. In several key domains, the figures suggest stagnation or strain rather than mobility.
More importantly, MSF’s latest reporting format makes year-on-year comparisons difficult, limiting the public’s ability to assess whether ComLink+ is achieving its stated objectives.
Employment stability: a key metric presented differently, obscuring trends
In the 2024 report, MSF stated plainly that 61% of ComLink+ families had stable employment, defined as maintaining at least six months of continuous work with regular income. This figure was central to the government’s narrative that employment outcomes were improving.
The 2025 report, however, does not restate this number. Instead, it highlights that 39% of families “had not achieved stability” as at end-2024, implying that the remaining families have some level of stability—mathematically around 60%.
At first glance, it appears similar. But the population base has changed significantly:
- new families were added in 2024.
- 61% of these new families had not achieved stability, a sharply higher vulnerability profile than the earlier cohorts.
- The 2025 report does not provide the stability rate of the pre-2024 cohort, making direct comparisons impossible.
In other words, while the headline percentage resembles the previous year’s inverse figure, it does not necessarily reflect unchanged conditions. Without cohort-specific reporting, the public cannot determine whether:
- pre-existing ComLink+ families improved,
- stagnated, or
- saw deterioration in employment stability.
This shift in reporting structure is itself significant. When key metrics are not consistently presented across years, meaningful evaluation becomes difficult, even though ComLink+ is explicitly framed as a long-term mobility programme.
A growing proportion of families classified as “not stable”
Beyond employment, MSF categorises families according to four tiers:
Not achieved stability → Stable → Self-reliant → Socially mobile.
As at end-2024, 10,219 families were enrolled in ComLink+.
Of these, the latest report shows:
- 5,763 families were classified as “not achieved stability”, up from 4,920 families a year earlier.
- This means more than half of all ComLink+ families were assessed as not having achieved basic stability.
- Among the 2,902 families newly onboarded in 2024, 61% fell into this category, indicating that most entered the scheme already facing significant challenges.
- MSF notes that stability gaps are most acute in income security and family functioning, two of the programme’s most critical domains.
MSF attributes the increase mainly to the onboarding of more vulnerable families. However, because the report does not disaggregate outcomes by cohort, the public is unable to see whether families that have been in ComLink+ for a year or longer are progressing from “not stable” into higher tiers, or whether they remain stuck.
Without cohort-level tracking, it is not possible to assess whether the programme is improving outcomes over time, or merely expanding to include families with deeper needs.
Rising family violence and child protection cases
One area where the trend is unmistakably negative—regardless of cohort mixing—is family functioning.
- 16% of ComLink+ families had active domestic violence or child protection cases in 2024, up from 11% in 2023.
- This represents a jump of 685 families in a single year.
- MSF attributes the increase to new entrants, but the size of the rise is not insignificant.
- Even after accounting for expansion, the report records a fall in the proportion of families assessed as “safe from harm”.
The fact that such a substantial fraction of families in the support scheme are grappling with acute safety issues highlights the complex, interlocking challenges faced by lower-income households. It also underscores that ComLink+ is increasingly dealing with deep-rooted social problems that cannot be resolved through short-term interventions.
Preschool attendance: persistent gaps despite high enrolment
Preschool enrolment remains high at 89%, but regular attendance remains a chronic problem:
- In 2024, 46% of eligible families had children who were enrolled and vaccinated but not attending regularly—a proportion that remains stubbornly high.
- Families with preschool children meeting all self-reliance indicators rose from 405 to 712—but MSF acknowledges this increase is due to expanded data collection rather than behavioural change.
The sector remains gridlocked: enrolment is high, but regular attendance—a key predictor of later educational outcomes—does not appear to be improving in a meaningful way.
Educational dropout risk remains a structural concern
The 2025 report reveals:
- 564 families had children not enrolled in school, including 403 youths aged 17–21 with no secondary or post-secondary enrolment records.
- While MSF notes that 60% of 21-year-olds completed post-secondary education (up from 58%), the dropout figures suggest a persistent vulnerability into late adolescence.
Without longitudinal tracking of individual families, it is unclear whether earlier ComLink+ interventions are preventing cycles of disengagement or whether these cases arise from new vulnerabilities emerging later.
ComCare utilisation is falling — but what does that mean?
The report highlights a decline in households receiving ComCare assistance:
- Short-to-Medium Term Assistance (SMTA) recipients fell from 22,960 to 20,825.
- Total disbursements have fallen steadily for four years.
MSF attributes this to stronger employment, younger elderly cohorts with more savings, and expanded support measures.
But the decline must be read cautiously:
- If families are exiting assistance before they achieve stability, this reduces expenditure but not necessarily hardship.
- Lower ComCare numbers do not equate to lower need if families face welfare cliffs—losing support faster than they can build financial buffers.
- The report itself notes vulnerability in the first 12 months after exiting SMTA, where most families who fall back into hardship return to the scheme.
The data therefore raises a critical policy question: Are families exiting ComCare because they are thriving, or because the thresholds do not give them room to stabilise?
MSF’s narrative focuses on inputs, not outcomes
Across the report, MSF highlights:
- the number of programmes supported,
- corporate partnerships,
- donations,
- and the uptake of ComLink+.
These are inputs. They do not necessarily reflect improvements in families’ lived realities.
Missing from the report are:
- year-on-year cohort comparisons,
- clear progressions across domains,
- or transparent tracking of how many families actually move from “not stable” to “stable” to “self-reliant”.
When the largest social mobility programme for lower-income families does not provide continuity in reporting, it becomes difficult for the public—and Parliament—to evaluate whether policy interventions are genuinely working.
Latest report signals strain, not mobility
The 2025 ComLink+ report does not tell a straightforward story of improvement.
Instead, it reveals:
- persistent instability,
- rising family dysfunction indicators,
- educational vulnerabilities,
- uncertain employment trajectories,
- and reporting structures that make year-on-year assessment difficult.
While MSF is correct that social mobility is a long-term journey, the data suggests that the system is not visibly moving families toward stability, especially when newly onboarded families are struggling at even more fundamental levels.
Lower-income families face deep structural barriers. Without consistent reporting frameworks—and without acknowledging stagnation or setbacks—the public cannot meaningfully evaluate whether ComLink+ is fulfilling its promise of uplift.
Instead of an improving trajectory, the figures from the 2025 report depict a system under greater strain than before.
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