Seoul City Allows Participation Registration for Safe Income Pilot Project via Phone

Measures for Online Difficult Furniture

[Asia Economy Reporter Kiho Sung] The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 5th that it will begin accepting applications for the second phase of the pilot project for Safe Income via telephone starting tomorrow.

Applications for the Safe Income pilot project via telephone can be made at the Safe Income Call Center for five days until 6 PM on the 10th. The call center operates from 9 AM to 6 PM, excluding lunchtime (12 PM to 1 PM).

Twenty professional counselors who have received prior training will be stationed at the call center to assist households that have difficulty applying online by verifying household information and other details.

Online applications will also be accepted simultaneously. Applications can be submitted anytime until 6 PM on the 10th through the Seoul Welfare Portal. Access is available via mobile or through the Chrome browser.

The target participants for the second phase of the Safe Income pilot project are households residing in Seoul (based on resident registration) with household incomes at or below 85% of the median income and assets of 326 million KRW or less.

Households wishing to participate can easily apply with a simple identity verification process and brief information such as contact details and number of household members, without submitting separate documents. Not only the head of the household but any household member can apply; however, only one application per household is allowed either online or via the call center.

The second phase of the Safe Income pilot project will select 1,100 households for the support group through two random selection processes over six months. All selection procedures will be conducted transparently and fairly with the presence of a monitoring team consisting of welfare and statistics experts as well as citizens. The results of the first selection (15,000 households) will be announced on the 16th of next month.

The final support group will be decided by the end of June, and the selected households (1,100 households) will receive monthly support for two years amounting to half the difference between the 85% median income standard and their household income.

Lee Su-yeon, Welfare Planning Officer, stated, “Telephone applications will be conducted alongside online applications to assist elderly and others who find online applications difficult.” She added, “This second phase is a new attempt to expand the range of participating households to those with incomes between 50% and 85% of the median income, who were previously excluded from general welfare benefits. We are accepting applications both online and by phone, so we ask citizens to take a keen interest in the Safe Income policy experiment and apply.”