Gyeonggi-do Launches Nation's First 'Rural Basic Income'... Cheongsan-myeon, Yeoncheon-gun Selected

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Cheongsan-myeon, Yeoncheon-gun has been selected as the pilot area for Gyeonggi Province's 'Rural Basic Income' project. The Rural Basic Income is a project promoted as part of the introduction of basic income during Lee Jae-myung's tenure as governor of Gyeonggi Province and his candidacy for president from the Democratic Party of Korea.

On the afternoon of the 28th, Gyeonggi Province announced that it conducted a random draw among four candidate sites for the Rural Basic Income pilot project and finally confirmed Cheongsan-myeon, Yeoncheon-gun as the project site.

The province plans to conduct a preliminary survey over the next two months and, starting around March next year, provide all actual residents of Cheongsan-myeon (3,880 people as of the end of November), including foreigners, with 150,000 KRW per person per month in local currency, totaling 1.8 million KRW annually, as basic income for five years.

For a family of four, this amounts to 7.2 million KRW per year and 36 million KRW over five years.

Considering the effect of rural population inflow, residents who transfer their resident registration and actually move during the pilot project period will be eligible to receive the Rural Basic Income.

However, residents receiving the Farmer Basic Income and Youth Basic Income cannot receive overlapping benefits.

Additionally, the province plans to select one myeon (township) that will not receive the Rural Basic Income to compare and analyze the project's effects. Residents of the comparison myeon will receive 30,000 KRW in local currency each time a sample survey is conducted.

The Rural Basic Income pilot project is a social experiment to examine the effects of basic income policy.

If the pilot project's effectiveness is proven, the province plans to expand the second phase to 26 myeon and ultimately to all 101 myeon areas within the province.

The budget for next year's project is set at 6.327 billion KRW, with Gyeonggi Province and Yeoncheon-gun sharing 70% and 30%, respectively.

For this project, the provincial council passed related ordinances in October. The province completed consultations with the Ministry of Health and Welfare on establishing the social security system last month and proceeded with the public recruitment process.

In the first expert review held on the 15th of this month, Cheongsan-myeon in Yeoncheon-gun, Buk-myeon in Gapyeong-gun, Sanbuk-myeon in Yeoju-si, and Papyong-myeon in Paju-si passed the first screening.

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