TAIPEI – The first thing Taiwanese social media specialist Simon Hsieh does at a convenience store is hunt for round stickers.

Pasted on food products, the stickers indicate that the item is near expiration and is therefore being sold at a discount – often for as much as 35 per cent off.

Mr Hsieh, 26, is particularly excited when his favourite salmon roe onigiri (rice ball) or mapo tofu rice go on sale.

“I’m not too picky about food and I need to save every dollar I can. I hope to buy an apartment one day, but things in Taipei are so expensive and I do not earn very much,” he said.

Mr Hsieh’s monthly salary is NT$38,500 (S$1,600), but nearly a third goes to renting a room in a flat that he shares with two others.

He sends a portion of his income to his parents living in rural Miaoli county in western Taiwan, and tries to save as much as he can of the rest, except for the occasional indulgence in karaoke with his friends.

“Sometimes I feel like my dream of buying a home is impossible,” he said. “I hope that the new government can do something to help.”

Mr Hsieh is not alone. Among those who are new to the workforce, home ownership is proving to be more elusive compared with in the past.

In 1993, the ratio of house price to annual income in Taipei was around 8.03, but it spiked to 15.5 by 2023. That means it would be nearly twice as hard for someone to afford a home today.

Ahead of President-elect Lai Ching-te’s inauguration on May 20, Taiwanese workers say the top issues they want the incoming government to prioritise are stagnant wages and soaring housing prices, according to a poll on April 30 by popular jobs portal 1111. 

In the same survey, 90.4 per cent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with their salaries – the highest level since the survey was first conducted six years ago.

This comes as new government data shows that Taiwan’s household wealth gap has nearly quadrupled in 30 years, with the richest 20 per cent of households holding 66.9 times more wealth than those in the bottom 20 per cent in 2021.

The results were released by the government’s Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) on April 30, and based on a combination of surveys and data.

This is the first such report the government has released since 1991. At that time, the richest 20 per cent of households had 16.8 times more wealth than the bottom 20 per cent.

According to Associate Professor Shane Su from the Department of Economics at National Taiwan University, the biggest factor for Taiwan’s widening wealth gap is housing inequality.

Taiwan’s “very low” interest rates of around 2 per cent or less for the past two decades have contributed to property prices skyrocketing over the years, he said, leaving younger generations of people priced out.

On the other hand, older folk who entered the property market decades ago would have likely seen the prices of their homes soar, leading to an accumulation of more wealth.

“Many young people today would not be able to afford a home without help from their parents,” added Prof Su.

Freelance translator Gloria Peng, 25, sells handmade candles at an outdoor market every weekend to supplement her income, which she says is irregular and “hardly enough”.

She also gets around Taipei on foot as much as she can to save on transportation costs.

“You read in the news about people who can get financial help from their family to buy their first home, but my parents are not rich. I can’t ask them,” she said of her parents who run a scallion pancake stall.

This issue was in the spotlight leading up to January’s presidential election, with Mr Hou Yu-ih, the candidate for the main opposition Kuomintang party, proposing forgoing the down payment for young first-time home buyers to help them get a foot on the property ladder.

Based on a report in April 2024 by Global Property Guide, which publishes international real estate trends, Taipei is now the second-most expensive city in Asia for purchasing property, based on the median price per sq m. 

Currently, the median buying price per sq m for a residential property in Taipei is US$17,551 (S$23,800), or NT$576,000, which is behind only that of Hong Kong’s US$25,802, said the report.

Meanwhile, real wages have grown by an annual average of just around 1 per cent over the past decade. 

While the median annual income of those working in the infocommunications sector in Hsinchu city – home to the lucrative semiconductor industry – reached NT$1.29 million in 2022, Taiwan’s overall median annual income was only NT$518,000, or about NT$43,170 a month.

At a press conference to announce the latest findings, Mr Pan Ning-hsin, director of the DGBAS census department, said: “Increasing wage differences across sectors have also led to wealth inequality.”

However, he said Taiwan’s disparity of 66.9 times is lower than that of other places, including South Korea (140.1 times) and Australia (93.1 times).

Taiwan’s Gini coefficient for household wealth of 0.606 is also lower than that of Japan (0.678), France (0.676) and Germany (0.727), added Mr Pan. The Gini coefficient, which measures inequality, ranges from zero to one – with zero representing an economy with perfect wealth equality, and one signifying maximum uneven distribution.

Prof Su said indicators on the wealth gap, while startling, are, in fact, an underestimation. 

“Typically, surveys are not the most accurate because people, especially the very wealthy, will either reject participating or they will under-report their assets,” Prof Su told The Straits Times.

“So it’s expected that there’s an issue of the ‘missing rich’ as well as missing income.”

In any case, the reality is not uncommon among developed societies, Prof Su added. 

“We are seeing the wealth gap widen in many economies throughout the world. What we should think about now is what to do about it,” he said.

Before Mr Lai’s election, he had pledged on the campaign trail to boost the economy by promoting inbound and outbound investment. He also proposed raising property taxes for those who own multiple homes, and said he would build more social housing units. 

Mr Hsieh, the social media worker, said he hopes the new government will deliver on its promises. 

“I don’t want to eat discounted convenience store food forever. I hope to be able to cook in a home of my own.”