Emergency Livelihood Support Fund for 4-Person Households to Increase by 13% Next Year

Starting next year, the emergency welfare living support fund for a four-person household will increase from 1.62 million KRW to 1.83 million KRW. Emergency welfare support is a system that temporarily provides living, housing, and medical assistance to low-income groups who have difficulty maintaining their livelihood due to unemployment or other reasons.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced on the 5th that it will publicly notify the revision of the official announcement, which includes the increase of the emergency welfare living support amount and the improvement of financial asset criteria for 2024, from the 6th to the 18th of this month, and will implement it from January 1, next year.

With the revision of the official announcement, the living support amount will be 1,833,500 KRW per month for a four-person household. This is a 13.16% increase compared to the previous amount (1,620,200 KRW).

Fuel costs provided to households receiving emergency welfare living and housing support will remain at 150,000 KRW next year. This will be paid monthly from October to March of the following year.

The financial assets, which serve as the selection criteria for emergency welfare support recipients, will be unified under the official announcement system, which was previously divided between guidelines and official announcements. It will be improved to reflect the median income for 2024 and set financial asset amounts according to the number of household members. For example, the financial asset criterion for a four-person household next year will be 11,729,000 KRW.

Jung Yoon-soon, Director of Social Welfare Policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, stated, “We hope that the increase in the emergency welfare living support amount and the improvement of support criteria will help low-income groups facing crisis situations,” and added, “We will continue to make efforts to strengthen emergency welfare support to actively protect households in crisis.”