The government will invest 356.7 billion KRW next year to provide 24-hour care services for people with the most severe developmental disabilities. The total budget for people with disabilities has been set at 6.3 trillion KRW, an increase of 500 billion KRW compared to this year's budget.
According to the '2024 Budget Plan' announced by the government on the 29th, next year's health and welfare budget is focused on strengthening welfare for the vulnerable. 340 people with disabilities, who have found it difficult to receive existing care services due to extreme challenging behaviors and whose families had to bear full responsibility for day and night care, will be newly incorporated into the government's care system. A government official explained, “Since this new project requires a budget of over 100 million KRW per person with a disability, we have focused on strengthening the national care system for people with disabilities.”
The government has allocated 2.2846 trillion KRW for disability activity support services, an increase of 292.7 billion KRW from this year’s budget, to expand service support targets. The budget to support families with children with disabilities has been increased from 175.7 billion KRW to 194 billion KRW, including expanding the severe disabled child care support service from 80 hours to 90 hours per month. This is a measure to strengthen the state’s responsibility for people with severe disabilities.
Livelihood benefits will be raised to the highest level ever. The government will invest an additional 1.5 trillion KRW to increase the total livelihood benefit amount by 213,000 KRW, which is more than the total increase of 196,000 KRW over the past five years (2017?2022). Livelihood benefits are a system that guarantees a minimum standard of living by providing necessary benefits to recipients who are struggling financially. Both the eligibility criteria and the support level will be expanded. The eligibility threshold will be raised from 30% to 32% of the median income, and the support amount (for a four-person household) will increase by 13.2%, from 1.62 million KRW to 1.834 million KRW. This strengthens the minimum living guarantee for recipients and enhances the social safety net for low-income groups.
Budget for expanding senior citizen jobs and increasing allowances will also increase by 486.2 billion KRW, totaling 2.0262 trillion KRW. Public interest jobs for seniors, which mainly consider income requirements, will increase from 608,000 to 654,000, and private and social service-type jobs will increase from 275,000 to 376,000. After six years, allowances will also be raised from 270,000 KRW to 290,000 KRW and from 594,000 KRW to 634,000 KRW, respectively. These measures aim to support a stable old age life.
The budget to reduce the debt burden of small business owners has also been increased. 3.8 trillion KRW, 800 billion KRW more than this year’s budget, will be invested to ease the interest burden on vulnerable borrowers such as multiple debtors. The budget to expand the New Start Fund to cover all micro small business owners will also increase by 480 billion KRW to 7.6 trillion KRW compared to this year. The New Start Fund is a government debt adjustment program provided to individual business owners or corporate small business owners affected by COVID-19 who have experienced insolvency (long-term delinquency of three months or more) or are at risk of insolvency.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
