Gwangju City Significantly Eases Emergency Welfare Support Criteria for COVID-19 Response

Gwangju City Hall

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 13th that it will significantly relax the emergency welfare support criteria until December in response to the increase in vulnerable groups experiencing economic difficulties due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

The emergency welfare support system is designed to provide temporary and rapid welfare services such as emergency living expenses and medical expenses to low-income households facing difficulties in maintaining their livelihood due to sudden crisis reasons such as the death or unemployment of the main income earner, divorce, or fire.

The support criteria apply to households with an income below 75% of the median income (approximately 3.56 million KRW for a family of four), assets under 188 million KRW, and financial assets under 5 million KRW. Support is provided in advance when a crisis occurs, with eligibility verification conducted afterward as a principle.

First, the city applied the relaxed support criteria by temporarily reducing the asset threshold from the existing 188 million KRW to 162 million KRW (86.2%), significantly raising the asset limit to 350 million KRW, which is similar to the basic asset amount under the basic pension system.

The financial asset criteria, including deposits, stocks, bonds, pensions, and insurance, were expanded by increasing the deduction rate for living preparation funds necessary for daily life from 65% to 150% of the median income, raising the deductible amount for a family of four from 3.087 million KRW to 7.124 million KRW.

Additionally, socially accepted unavoidable expenses such as marriage and funeral costs, essential living expenses, and balances in seized bank accounts can also be deducted.

Along with this, Gwangju recognizes situations where income has been lost or drastically reduced due to unpaid leave caused by COVID-19 as crisis situations. The support frequency was also improved: previously, re-support was not allowed within two years for the same crisis reason or illness, but now re-support is possible after three months from the end of the emergency support.

Emergency welfare support provides living expenses of 1.23 million KRW per month for up to six times based on a family of four, and medical expenses can be supported up to 3 million KRW twice. Additional benefits such as housing costs, education expenses, childbirth and funeral expenses, fuel costs, and electricity bills can also be supported.

As of the end of July, the number of emergency welfare cases discovered and supported by the five autonomous districts in Gwangju was 16,245 cases, amounting to 9.645 billion KRW, showing a 10.1% increase compared to 14,757 cases in the same month last year.

The city analyzed that emergency welfare applications are increasing recently from business suspension or closure workers, unpaid leave workers, and freelancers with sharply reduced income, urging autonomous districts and administrative welfare centers to pay special attention and effort to discovering crisis households to prevent blind spots in the social safety net.

In particular, when the occurrence of a crisis situation due to COVID-19 is clear and income and asset criteria are clearly met, the city simplified the review process by allowing the omission of appropriateness screening. Furthermore, by applying the active administration exemption regulations, it prohibits unfavorable treatment or disposition against emergency welfare officials unless there is intentional or gross negligence.

Ryu Mi-su, head of the city’s Social Welfare Division, said, “There is a high possibility that the number of households losing jobs or experiencing financial hardship will increase compared to the first half of the year due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. Along with relaxing the emergency welfare support requirements, we will strengthen the activities of the community security councils and crisis household discovery teams in each neighborhood and support field personnel to ensure that citizens do not miss out on assistance due to lack of awareness of the system.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.