보건복지부 영문홈페이지

Strong support will be provided for families at risk

-The definition of “families at risk” will be extended to cover business suspension and shut-down, unemployment, release from prison, and homelessness, etc -

 

Ministry of Health and Welfare (Minister Rim, Chae Min) decided to expand the definition of

“families at risk” to provide temporary urgent welfare benefits to more families to support their

livelihoods, education and medical expenses so that those in low income class who have

difficulty in sustaining their livelihoods due to sudden financial crisis can be restored to normalcy

and loosen the standards for residence support, starting from 30 Jan.    

 

The previously defined reasons for urgent welfare benefits were; loss of income due to the death

or disappearance of a main income earner, etc, severe disease or injury and abandonment by a

family, etc. However, since only an extremely limited number of families were able to receive

benefits it was difficult to prevent those at risk from falling into poverty class. In this regard,

unemployment, business suspension/shut-down, release from prison, homelessness, etc are

added to the definition of “at risk,” strengthening the support to prevent families at risk from falling

into poverty class.

 

Specific details of the extension of the benefits and standards for them are as follows.

 

In the case of unemployment, workers who cannot receive the unemployment benefit because

they are not subscribed to the employment insurance even though they left their job after working

six months and more as well as senior workers aged 65 and older will be subject to the urgent

welfare benefit.   

 

Speaking of business suspension and shutdown, those who had been doing business for more

than a year as simplified tax payers but had to close their business either temporarily or

permanently because of sales loss, etc are subject to the urgent welfare support.

 

Also, those who have been released from prison but have nowhere to go and those who are not

covered by the basic social security system and those who have been homeless for less than

six months for financial reasons are subject to the benefit.

 

 

In order to allow flexible provision of urgent welfare benefits to families at risk that don’t meet the

prescribed standards, a plan to provide support for them through autonomous decision-making

by local government within a certain range of budget will be also implemented.

 

This has made it possible to provide urgent welfare support for families at risk defined as

ordinance by a local council or recognized by head of a local government given characteristics

and situation of the concerned region. This will open the way for families at risk that haven’t been

able to receive support since they haven’t been subject to definitions of “at risk” prescribed in

related regulation (Urgent Welfare Support Legislation and Notification) to receive benefits.

 

Also, in order to provide residence support for more families at risk, the benefit will be extended

from families whose financial property including savings and installment savings is less than 3

million won to those whose financial property is less than 5 million won.

 

A welfare policy official (Kwon, Duk Cheol) from Ministry of Health and Welfare said, “we expect

that we will have a firm system of preventing poverty of low income class by providing rapid and

effective support to families at risk for various reasons through steady improvement of the urgent

welfare support system such as loosening of standards for livelihood support and extension of

residence support duration.