"Even Day Laborers Earn a Lot These Days"... Government Considers Imposing Health Insurance Fees

Considered 'Income of Vulnerable Groups'
but Income Steadily Rising Due to Wage Increases
Reviewing Expansion of Tax Base for Fiscal Stability

The government is considering imposing health insurance premiums on daily wage income. Daily workers have been regarded as a vulnerable group and thus exempt from health insurance premiums, but now it is judged that their income has increased enough to contribute to the health insurance fund.

According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Health Insurance Service on the 4th, the health insurance authorities have decided to review measures to impose premiums on new types of income, including daily wage income, to ensure the stable operation of health insurance finances, which are facing red flags due to rapid low birth rates and aging population. For this, a procedure will be established to allow voluntary reporting of temporarily earned income and prepayment of premiums. Specifically, the scope of income subject to premium imposition will be expanded, including imposing premiums on daily wage income, which is currently subject to health insurance premiums under the law but not charged premiums.

Daily workers refer to workers who are not continuously employed by a specific employer and provide labor for less than three months (less than one year if engaged in construction work), receiving wages based on the days or hours worked. Daily wage income is the pay these workers receive on a daily or hourly basis. According to Article 41 of the Enforcement Decree of the Health Insurance Act, income subject to health insurance premiums includes interest income, dividend income, business income, and earned income, with daily wage income classified as earned income.

In the past, daily wage income was considered money earned by poor daily workers struggling to make a living, but the health insurance authorities believe the situation has changed due to minimum wage increases and other factors. According to National Tax Service statistics, the annual daily wage income per person steadily increased from 8.65 million KRW in 2021 to 9.38 million KRW in 2022, and 9.84 million KRW in 2023. Last year, the total taxable income earned by 7,056,110 daily workers was 69.45946 trillion KRW.

Imposing health insurance premiums on daily wage income is also aimed at correcting the practice of exempting foreign workers from premiums. Foreign workers, who have been encroaching on Korea’s daily labor market by earning about 10 trillion KRW last year based on low daily wages, have not paid health insurance premiums so far. Last year, 458,680 foreign daily workers earned a total income of 9.0961 trillion KRW in Korea.