Poverty Policy and the Working Poor

Abstract

This paper examines the trends and levels of poverty incidences as well as the government's antipoverty policy and suggests government task for eliminating poverty in Korea. Because poverty rate is closely related to the size of the most vulnerable groups, we can estimate that the size of the poor in Korea varies between 3.6 million and 11.9 million persons. But the number of public assistance recipients announced by Ministry of Health Welfare in 1999 was about 1.9 million. Although the Kim Dae-jung government has exerted much effort in fighting unemployment and poverty through budgetary expansion, revision of existing poverty relief programs, and the adoption of new antipoverty policy, government's these measures have a number of problems. To overcome the shortcomings of the present government's antipoverty policy, the following antipoverty policy adjustments and specific action are highly recommended: 1) instituting components of the social safety net (SSN) 2) effective operation of the National Minimum Living Standards Security Law 3) establishing infrastructure for poverty monitoring 4) including the underprivileged in the social insurance program 5) building a nationwide social security system 6) expanding the central government's social welfare budget 7) adjusting the tax system 8) strengthening the delivery of social services at the grass-roots level 9) expanding GO-NGO collaboration.