Yeom Tae-young, Mayor of Suwon, "Basic Property Amounts in Suwon, Yongin, Changwon, etc. Should Be Raised to Metropolitan City Levels"

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Yeom Tae-young, Mayor of Suwon, along with the mayors of four regions with populations exceeding 1 million, requested Minister Kwon Deok-cheol of the Ministry of Health and Welfare to "apply the basic property amount for special cities based on the 'large city' standard to prevent reverse discrimination in social welfare benefits."

On the 29th, Mayor Yeom, Mayor Baek Gun-gi of Yongin, and Mayor Heo Seong-mu of Changwon met with Minister Kwon Deok-cheol in the small conference room of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee and delivered a "Request for Revision of the Basic Property Amount Notice to Improve Unreasonable Welfare Recipient Selection Criteria."

Mayor Yeom emphasized, "Since taking office as mayor in the 5th local election in 2010, I have continuously requested the government to improve the welfare recipient selection criteria so that citizens of cities with populations over 1 million do not suffer disadvantages," adding, "This issue must be resolved when the special cities are launched in January next year."

Minister Kwon responded, "I sympathize with the request, but this matter requires agreement through research and studies within the government," and added, "We need to discuss financial issues related to the revision of the criteria."

Cities with populations over 1 million have socio-economic scales and living standards similar to Seoul and other metropolitan cities, but when selecting welfare recipients, they are classified as 'small and medium-sized cities,' resulting in a lower basic property amount compared to large cities.

Under the current system, the basic property amount deducted when selecting basic livelihood security recipients is divided into 69 million KRW for large cities, 42 million KRW for small and medium-sized cities, and 35 million KRW for rural areas. Suwon, despite having a population exceeding 1 million and being a large city, is classified as a small and medium-sized city, so the basic property deduction is 42 million KRW. If classified as a large city, the deduction would be 69 million KRW, meaning 27 million KRW less is deducted currently. This results in basic livelihood security recipients being disadvantaged.

Due to such unreasonable welfare recipient selection criteria, citizens of the four special cities cannot receive welfare benefits under legal standards even if their property size is similar to that of citizens in large cities. This uniform system, which does not consider city size, causes disadvantages to citizens.

Mayor Yeom reiterated the demand for improvement of the social security benefit recipient criteria, requesting once again, "Please revise the basic property amount notice as soon as possible."

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