Former Likud minister Moshe Kahlon, who is running in the March elections as head of the newly founded Kulanu party, warned Sunday against a “social disengagement” in Israel.

“In Israel of 2014, the equation is simple: The weaker you are – the more you pay. This situation has to change, and this situation is going to change. I believe in a free market economy – but with social sensitivity,” Kahlon said, speaking at the annual fundraiser of the Reuth Rehabilitation Hospital in Tel Aviv.

“The State of Israel is committing another disengagement that we have not noticed – a social disengagement,” he continued. “When I talk about social policy I’m talking about compassion, about caring for others, about providing support where needed, about allowing equal opportunity. As I was told when I was Welfare Minister, ‘A hungry child, you will not find him at age 21 completing an aviation course in the army.’”

Kahlon added, “Today I do not know many people who can say to their children, ‘You will have it better.’ We all work, all earn a living, we have all gained an education. The greatest tragedy is that all the barriers and cartels and monopolies prevent us from telling our children that their future will be better. Once upon a time we need help from our parents to buy an apartment, now we need help from our parents in rent and tuition.”

Kahlon, one of the most popular ministers in recent years, quit the Likud before the 2013 elections and recently returned with Kulanu, which he has said would focus on economic development and fixing the cost of living crisis.

Last week, Israel Prize winner Eli Elaluf announced that he is joining Kulanu.

Elaluf, 69, who won the Israel Prize in 2011 for his special contributions to Israeli society and the State, served as the head of the most recent Knesset Committee for Combating Poverty.

Another name that has been linked with Kahlon is Professor Manuel Trajtenberg, who headed a special committee appointed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to examine complaints by protestors during the “cottage cheese” protests of summer 2011, when tens of thousands took to the streets to protest the high cost of living in Israel.

The Trajtenberg Committee, as the panel became known, recommended a long list of reforms in taxation, construction, reducing the defense budget, increasing minimum wage levels, instituting state-mandated pensions, and a slew of other issues, some of which have been adopted, and others that are still being discussed by the Knesset.

Trajtenberg recently informed the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education in Israel, which he chaired, that he was resigning in order to throw his hat into the political arena, though he did not specify which party he was planning to join.