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| Bae Byung-joon, director general of welfare policy bureau of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, announces plans for a better welfare system to locate and support people in the lowest-income brackets, during a press briefing at Government Complex Sejong, Thursday. Yonhap |
By Bahk Eun-ji
The government will offer a one-stop welfare system in which citizens in low-income brackets can apply for all eligible support programs provided by different state organizations and look up information on them, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Thursday.
The move follows the deaths of a North Korean defector and her six-year-old son in Seoul. The two were found dead in their apartment in July, about two months after they died, presumably of starvation.
It was later found that she was eligible for multiple central and local government support programs, including subsidies for single-parent families and the extremely poor, but she had not applied for any of them and the government did not reach out to her either.
According to the ministry, the government will ease the application process for subsidies so that people in low-income brackets who need social security benefits do not miss out due to lack of relevant information or complex application processes.
The government will run a "welfare membership" program to provide catered welfare service information. Once a person in a low-income bracket applies for a welfare program, the local authorities will proactively provide information on all other programs and subsidies the person is eligible for and allow them to receive the programs in a package.
It will take effect in September 2021, earlier than the initially planned April 2022.
As part of this program, each community service center will also have a "one-stop consultation" center.
The government will also strengthen its monitoring system to locate low-income households in welfare blind spots. If someone fails to pay monthly rent or electricity bills at a public apartment or health insurance premiums for a long period of time, the relevant authorities will have to inform the welfare authorities, so the government can check up on them and provide financial support if needed.
"The welfare ministry will provide a social security net to all people in need with this reinforced policy. At the same time, we ask citizens to pay attention to neighbors suffering from difficulties so that we can prevent such unfortunate deaths," Bae Byung-joon, director general of the welfare policy bureau at the welfare ministry, said during a press briefing.
