Singapore gives every citizen over twenty-five $500 to learn anything they choose.
In 2015, the government of Singapore launched SkillsFuture, a national initiative providing every citizen aged twenty-five and older with a credit of 500 Singapore dollars (roughly 370 US dollars at launch) to spend on approved courses in any field.1 The credit was not tied to employment status, employer approval, or any specific career path. A banker could study ceramics. A taxi driver could learn coding. The only requirement was citizenship.
The program reflected a national anxiety. Singapore’s economy, built on manufacturing and trade, was shifting toward services, technology, and knowledge work. The government calculated that workers would need to retrain multiple times over a career and that employers alone could not be trusted to invest in skills they might not need.2 By 2020, more than 660,000 Singaporeans had used their credits, in a country with a total population of roughly 5.7 million.3
SkillsFuture also included sector-specific initiatives, mid-career transition programs, and a SkillsFuture Work-Study Programme modeled loosely on the Swiss apprenticeship system, embedding on-the-job training within formal education.4 The government increased the base credit to 4,000 Singapore dollars for citizens turning forty, acknowledging that mid-career transitions required greater investment.
The initiative was not without critics. Some argued that the credits were too small to fund meaningful retraining, and that low-wage workers were less likely to use them than professionals who already had access to employer-sponsored development. By 2023, the government had committed more than 1 billion Singapore dollars to the program since its inception.5