Lee Jae-myung Ranks No.1 as Next Economic President... Far Ahead of Yoon Seok-yeol

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Who is the best candidate to be the next economic president of the Republic of Korea? In the preference polls for the next presidential candidates from both ruling and opposition parties, which are released almost daily, former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol is leading, surpassing Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung.

However, when focusing solely on economic areas such as housing stability for ordinary citizens, resolving wealth polarization, economic crisis management capability, financial market stability, and labor-management relations improvement, the situation is quite different.

According to the results of the "20th Presidential Election Public Perception Survey (1st round)" conducted by the polling agency 'Embrain Public,' which has a research panel of 1.37 million people, from 6:00 PM on June 10 to 8:30 PM on June 14, a total of 1,011 respondents aged 18 to 69 nationwide (510 men and 501 women) were surveyed via email and web-based methods. Governor Lee Jae-myung significantly outperformed former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol in all economic-related survey questions.

This survey divided economic tasks into seven categories: ▲economic development and job expansion ▲housing stability for ordinary citizens ▲resolving wealth polarization ▲establishing an economic crisis management system ▲strengthening fiscal soundness ▲financial market stability ▲improving labor-management relations, and each was scored on a scale from 0 to 10.

As a result, Governor Lee Jae-myung scored an overall average of 53.2 points across the seven economic areas, far ahead of former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol, who scored only 39.3 points. Notably, Governor Lee received more than 50 points in all seven survey items. In contrast, former Prosecutor General Yoon scored above 40 points in only two categories: economic development and job expansion, and strengthening fiscal soundness.

Looking at the scores by category, Governor Lee Jae-myung received the highest score (55.7 points) in the "economic development and job expansion" category, which asked who is expected to appropriately support the growth of future industries such as the 4th industrial revolution, semiconductors, and electric vehicles, and achieve expansion of quality jobs.

He also scored above 50 points in housing stability for ordinary citizens (54.5 points), resolving wealth polarization (53.2 points), establishing an economic crisis management system (52.8 points), strengthening fiscal soundness (52.7 points), improving labor-management relations (52.1 points), and financial market stability (51.1 points).

On the other hand, former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol received his highest score (41.0 points) in economic development and job expansion. This was followed by strengthening fiscal soundness (40.3 points), housing stability for ordinary citizens (39.4 points), establishing an economic crisis management system (38.9 points), financial market stability (38.8 points), improving labor-management relations (38.4 points), and resolving wealth polarization (38.2 points).

The survey results from respondents who identified themselves as centrists were not significantly different from the overall results.

Governor Lee Jae-myung scored an overall average of 53.1 points across the seven economic areas, significantly ahead of former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol, who scored 38.3 points. Governor Lee scored above 50 points in all seven categories, while former Prosecutor General Yoon remained in the 30-point range in six categories except for economic development and job expansion (40.2 points).

Other presidential candidates expected to perform well in economic national tasks, excluding Governor Lee Jae-myung and former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol, included ▲former Democratic Party leader Lee Nak-yeon (42.7 points) ▲People's Party leader Ahn Cheol-soo (38.5 points) ▲former Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun (38.4 points) ▲former People Power Party lawmaker Yoo Seung-min (36.8 points) ▲Justice Party lawmaker Shim Sang-jung (36.7 points) ▲People Power Party lawmaker Hong Joon-pyo (32.6 points).

An Embrain Public official explained, "The survey respondents were randomly selected according to the population composition by gender, age, and region," adding, "The sampling error is ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level, and the response rate was 64.7%."