Because of the pandemic situation caused by the COVID-19 virus, the whole economy of South Korea has been frozen, which has increased the number of people who are at economical risk. For the solution, the South Korean government is planning to provide a disaster relief subsidy. Currently, it is being given to those people who are greatly affected by the situation. However, people are arguing whether the government should supply this disaster subsidy to everyone or not.

▲ Standard of providing the emergency relief subsidy

The current way of providing the subsidy of the South Korean government is to provide it to the 70 percent of people with the lowest income by measuring their total income. People who state that the subsidy should be provided to everyone claim that it is very difficult to distinguish the 70 percent of people with the lowest income by just measuring their income, and it is also hard to make the standard of the "damaged people". They state that the keyword of the subsidy is "emergency" and the way not to waste time and to supply the disaster relief subsidy fairly is to provide the subsidy to everyone regardless of their total income.

▲ comparing emergency relief subsidy from other countries

On the contrary, other people claim that the government should protect their budget by providing the disaster relief subsidy to the people who actually need it. To supply the subsidy to everyone, as the first opinion said, the budget is about two to five trillion won. They state that the South Korean government should reduce their expenses because the government already spent over 1.1 trillion won by handling the early COVID-19 situation.

▲ South Koreans` opinion of emergency relief subsidy

Having these different opinions is currently one of the biggest issues in South Korea. To summarize the two opinions, the first opinion claims that this is an emergency situation, and it is so hard to distinguish the "damaged ones" so the government should provide the subsidy to everyone. Then, the other opinion states that the government has spent so much of their total budget, so they have to protect their budget by providing the subsidy to people who really need it. It is expected that it will take much time to make the final decision of providing the disaster relief subsidy.

2021-09-11 

by Jeon Seung Hyun