A Study on Establishment of Income Security System DB

Abstract

The income security system DB is a dataset of each income security system as an observation unit. The purpose of this study is to prepare a systematic DB for collection and classification of major information on Korea's income security systems. Once a list of income security systems can be prepared for continuous accumulation of information on the characteristics by converting it into quantitative information, it will be possible to grasp the entire system at a glance and easily understand the distribution of each characteristic of the system. To prepare the DB, projects for performing the income security functions were extracted from the list of budget programs implemented by the central government, and various data issued by the ministry were used to identify the characteristics of individual projects by converting them into quantitative information. The income security system can be regarded as excluding the system of benefits in kind but meaning the rest (i.e., cash benefit system) of the government’s social security systems. This study did not adopt a method of limiting the scope of the system to be included in the DB according to the strict theoretical definition of the income security system. Instead, various projects of cash payment were included in the DB by providing the information related to the characteristics of each system so that users of the DB could set their own analysis scope. The DB was established by extracting the budget data on the social security projects of cash support from the Ministry of Strategy and Finance on detailed expenditure of fiscal 2019. In this data, the hierarchy of the systems is divided into programs, unit projects, and detailed projects. This study further subdivided the detailed projects into hierarchies such as benefits and detailed benefits, and in some cases, observation units were subdivided into detailed benefits for each qualification standard. In this DB, the characteristics of each system were quantitatively expressed by each item (column). Items in the DB mainly include such items as system names (of detailed projects, benefits, detailed benefits, etc.), the Minister in charge, and support method and nature. In addition, such related variables were included in relation to eligibility as demographic and sociological characteristic conditions (gender, age, educational background, etc.) and income and property conditions (including deduction and conversion-related information). In addition, such items were included as the nature and decision method of benefits, information on budget and settlement of accounts (accounting classification, amount of settlement of accounts, etc.) and the size of recipients. In order to establish an income security system DB, cash benefit systems were first reviewed for each field. The system in the field of retirement income security was covering 18 detailed projects, including the income support for retired individuals or the elderly, and various public pension-related systems for working-age groups to guarantee the retirement income. The family and child income support sector was including 37 cash payment projects for families and children. Income support for working-age groups was covering the unemployment benefits and training expenses to develop workers' abilities in the event of unemployment, employment services and cash support for the vulnerable in the blind spot of employment insurance, labor cost support for local job creation, earned income tax credit and child tax credit. The disabled and veterans sectors were mainly covering the projects targeting the disabled and veterans. Projects in the field of support for the disabled may be classified into employment and welfare support, industrial accident support, and others. Veterans projects can be divided into support for national merit, for veterans, and for soldiers. There are 72 detailed projects in the field of disability and veterans. In the field of basic livelihood security, examination was held for the public assistance system supporting the low-income class.First of all, the National Basic Livelihood Security System covers such benefits as livelihood, housing, education, family dissolution, and funeral. . Next coverage was such projects as self-support, and asset formation support operated as part of self-support projects. Finally, it included an emergency welfare support system, a health insurance support project for the next lowest class, and a social and natural disaster victim support project. Most of the income security systems in the education sector are mainly scholarship support projects centered on the Ministry of Education. It also includes early childhood education and childcare fees for preschool children, employment-linked incentives for high school students, and the national scholarship system, a representative income support project for college students. In addition, there are scholarship projects such as the national scholarships by the Ministry of Science and ICT for outstanding science and technology students and by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance for low-income students. Income security system in the culture and arts sector includes the artist life stabilization fund project by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, which is a loan project to help artists establish a foundation for their livelihoods. As a result of constructing a comprehensive DB by combining the DBs for each field as described above, a dataset covering 458 observation units was completed. Among them, characteristics were analyzed for 99 detailed projects (total budget of about KRW100 trillion). The Ministry of Health and Welfare (23 detailed projects, about KRW44.4 trillion) is responsible for the largest number of detailed projects and budgets, and cash payments in terms of support methods, and simple cash benefits in terms of support nature were found to account for the largest proportion of detailed projects or budget. In addition, it was found that the number of detailed projects targeting individuals (not household) accounted for an overwhelming majority of 89. The number of detailed projects with contributing conditions mainly for social insurance-related systems is smaller than those without contributing conditions, but the budget is larger. In terms of financing, it can be seen that detailed projects were financed by funds account for the largest proportion in all aspects of the number of projects and budget. There were 20 detailed projects imposed of both income and property conditions, of which 18 adopted the tariff income method. Nearly half of the detailed projects that impose income or property conditions use the standard median income category while adopting the tariff income method. In addition, it was confirmed that about 90% of the detailed project budget using the standard median income category adopts the selection criterion within 50% of the standard median income. The detailed project with the largest number of recipients was the basic pension (about 5.35 million). The direction of improvement of DB is largely divided into the direction of expanding and supplementing the list of systems and the direction of supplementing the items of DB. In order to supplement the system in the future, it is necessary to include various expenditure reduction and exemption projects and tax expenditure projects that were excluded from this DB. In addition, methods to include support projects for institutions should be reviewed. In the long run, it is necessary to develop the income security system DB into the social security system DB, including in-kind support projects. In the future, it is necessary to match the criteria in segmenting the detailed projects into benefits and detailed benefits in this DB. In the process of quantifying information related to the characteristics of each system, information loss may inevitably occur, which is expected to be supplemented in the process of continuously adding up and developing characteristic items or options for each item. Although it is an important item for effectiveness of the income security system, estimates of the size of potential recipients were not included in this DB. In the future, data supplementation and methodological research are needed so that the information can be included in the DB.