Gyeonggi Province-Seongnam City Conflict Leaves Only 'Basic Income' Unreceived by Innocent Seongnam Youth

Youth Basic Income Information Poster

Seongnam City in Gyeonggi Province has suspended applications for the 'Youth Basic Income' program that began on the 1st of this month. It is the only city among the 31 cities and counties in Gyeonggi Province to do so. The Youth Basic Income is a key project of former Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung (currently the leader of the Democratic Party), providing 1 million KRW annually in local currency, distributed quarterly at 250,000 KRW, as self-development funds to youths turning 24. The project budget is shared with Gyeonggi Province covering 70% and the respective city or county covering 30%.

The suspension of Youth Basic Income applications in Seongnam City traces back to the end of last year. At that time, the Seongnam City Council, dominated by the People Power Party, did not allocate any budget for the Youth Basic Income in this year’s main budget. This led to opposition from the Democratic Party members of the council, escalating into a conflict between the ruling and opposition parties, which delayed the approval of the main budget, forcing Seongnam City into a provisional budget system at the beginning of this year.

Subsequently, the city council belatedly decided to allocate the Youth Basic Income project budget at the usual level and approved Seongnam City’s main budget on January 13th, albeit late.

As a result, when Gyeonggi Province set its 2023 budget at the end of last year, it did not allocate funds related to the Youth Basic Income due to the Seongnam City Council’s failure to allocate the budget at that time.

A Gyeonggi Province official explained, "Since Seongnam City did not allocate the Youth Basic Income project budget when establishing its main budget at the end of last year, Gyeonggi Province was also unable to set the related budget."

Due to the delayed budget approval in Seongnam City this year, out of the total project cost of 10.55 billion KRW, the city’s 30% share of 3.152 billion KRW, excluding the province’s 70%, was used to pay 2.367 billion KRW in Youth Basic Income to 8,496 eligible youths for the first quarter on April 20th.

However, the recent suspension occurred because Gyeonggi Province did not provide Seongnam City with the 7 billion KRW provincial subsidy for this year until just before the Youth Basic Income application period.

A Gyeonggi Province official stated, "In the decision-making process for allocating provincial subsidies, we considered the current poor financial situation of Gyeonggi Province and Seongnam City’s decision to completely abolish the project from next year, indicating a lack of sustained commitment, and thus decided not to provide the subsidy."

On the first day of the third quarter Youth Basic Income application period on the 1st, Gyeonggi Province sent KakaoTalk messages to eligible recipients in Seongnam City stating, "Due to the non-allocation of the 2023 Youth Basic Income budget, the payment of the second quarter Youth Basic Income and the application and payment for the third quarter in Seongnam City are not possible."

In response, Seongnam City sent a text message to the eligible youths on the same day, stating, "Since Gyeonggi Province has not allocated the provincial subsidy that should be provided to Seongnam City, the payment of the second quarter Youth Basic Income and the application for the third quarter have been suspended. We will provide guidance on the second quarter payment and third quarter application once the province allocates the budget."

Meanwhile, the Seongnam City Council passed an ordinance to abolish the Youth Basic Income program last month, with the condition that the program will be implemented until the end of this year and abolished starting January next year.

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