Throughout her campaign and transition period...
President-elect Park Geun-hye pledged to make welfare programs for the people her top priority.
Last Tuesday,... the Korean government passed this year's budget...
with about one third of the funds allocated to welfare benefits.
Ji Myung-kil ... joins us now to walk us through.
Good evening.
Last week the government approved this year's 322 billion U.S. dollar budget.
Of that, 94 billion dollars was outlaid to fund welfare programs,...which is a third
of the total budget.
And some of Park Geun-hye's welfare pledges were funded such as pushing forward with free
childcare across the board and increasing college tuition support.
So what stands out in the array of benefits?
The three most noticeable welfare programs are free childcare, funding college tuition
fees and an increase in soldier's salaries.
Parents can choose to receive money for sending their children to daycare centers or get cash
benefits for raising their children at home.
Couples with a newborn will be able to receive up to three-hundred-seventy dollars a month
in childcare expenditures or opt for 188 dollars in child rearing expenses.
Regardless of how many children there are in a family...
parents will receive support for each child.
Next, college tuition fees will be gradually funded over the next three years.
Students' in the bottom 20 percent income bracket will be eligible to receive more than
4-thousand dollars per semester.
And students from the bottom 40 to 70 percent range will see their tuition burdens halved.
And some good news for young Korean men fulfilling their military service,...their salaries will
increase by 20 percent starting this year for all ranks.
Sergeants will receive 122 dollars a month up from 101 dollars and Privates will receive
92 dollars up from 77 dollars.
So we have some benefits based on income... but childcare will be provided to all?
Yes, for example, the childcare service for newborns to five year olds is available to
anyone regardless of their income level.
But experts say, in order to be more effective...the policy needs to be designed better.
"I think within the universal policy scheme there is still room to think about whether
you want to put more policy incentives for those families where both parents are working
because they will be the ones who need more support,...clearly from a policy perspective
you want to have more children from low income families to go to childcare centers."
And starting in March, Korean parents who send their children age five and under to
daycare centers will be able to pay their expenses with special cards, which are being
provided by the government.
And what about health care.
That's a big one to tackle.
President-elect Park Geun-hye has promised 100 percent national health insurance
coverage for severe diseases starting in 2016.
Parliament is also pushing to increase pensions for the elderly over the age of 65,...starting
with people whose incomes are in the bottom 70 percent.
(Korean) "You need more than seven billion dollars
to fund pensions for senior citizens over the age of 65 and within 20 to 30 years this
could put a huge burden on tax payers."
We've heard from the Park camp that she will try to expand welfare without directly raising
taxes.
Will these creative measures succeed?
Experts say, welfare is not free and somebody has to pay for it.
And the society will need to have some kind of consensus of how much resource will be
spent on certain welfare programs.
Kim Jae-jin at the Korea Institute for Public Finance says there are many ways to increase
taxes.
He says you can revive the underground economy and collect more taxes.
The government could also reduce tax cuts on non-taxable objects, which would be worth
more than 28 billion dollars, and could collect taxes on overdue payments, which would also
add up to more than 28 billion dollars.
Another option is to raise income and corporate taxes which the current Lee Myung-bak administration
cut.
(Korean) "As Korea's society ages fast with low birth
rates...the government needs to find stable sources in tax revenues as the number of taxpayers(working
people) will likely decrease in the future."
Well it seems the government needs to work on how to secure money for more welfare programs.
Thank-you Myung-kil.
Sure.