There is a huge gap between a dual-income corporate couple scraping by in the Klang Valley and ultra-high-net-worth households, yet policymakers stubbornly lump them together.

This structural blind spot came to a head when surging fuel subsidies heavily burdened government coffers, and the political solution seemed simple: strip subsidies from the T20.

Dr. Melati Nungsari of the Asia School of Business and Timothy Tiah of Colony join Enterprise Explores to discuss why treating the T20 like a group of "1 percenters" is a mistake for the economy.

We unpack the unique vulnerabilities of high-salary wage earners living paycheck-to-paycheck in the Klang Valley, why grouping the top 1% with the 19th-percentile creates massive policy distortions, the government trust deficit, and why the ultimate economic holy grail must be worker productivity, not subsidy dependence.

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