Jeong Jong-yoon, Wanju County Council Member, Draws Attention by Proposing Alternative Wanju-style Population Policy

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Tae-in] Jeong Jong-yoon, a member of the Wanju-gun Council in Jeonbuk (Sanggan, Soyang, Gui), advocated on the 19th during the administrative audit of the Wanju-gun Education and Child Welfare Department for the payment of a ‘Youth Allowance’ of 50,000 KRW per month to local youths aged 13 to 18 as a measure to attract population inflow to Wanju.

The idea is to support households with middle and high school students who have significant expenditures in their life cycle such as education and food expenses, thereby preventing the outflow of the existing young generation and creating a groundbreaking turning point for new population inflow.

Councilor Jeong Jong-yoon stated, “Due to COVID-19, there is an obligation to execute the limited budget more efficiently and effectively,” adding, “Instead of uniformly reducing the budget quantitatively according to the reduced budget ratio, if sunset clauses and other measures are actively introduced, securing the budget is sufficiently possible.”

If the youth allowance is paid, about 4,800 youths in Wanju-gun will benefit, and the cost will be approximately 2.9 billion KRW annually.

In response, the Education and Child Welfare Department mentioned youth allowance systems currently implemented in Jeongeup and Gimje, stating, “We fully agree on the necessity of introducing the youth allowance and preparing groundbreaking policies for population policy, but since it involves budget, multifaceted review is necessary.”

Meanwhile, Councilor Jeong Jong-yoon proposed this issue during a 5-minute free speech at the 255th Wanju-gun Council extraordinary session on the 15th of last month.

At that time, Councilor Jeong pointed out that although allowances are paid to various age groups and classes including child allowance, elderly allowance, youth allowance, and farmer allowance, there is no support for middle and high school students, and proposed the necessity of a youth allowance from the perspective of universal welfare and basic income system.

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