33 Million Won Monthly Income Earned by 3,300 Office Workers... What Is Their Identity?

Based on individual health insurance contributions alone,
Monthly payment of 4,240,710 KRW
About 3,300 ultra-high-income employees
Only 0.00016% of all workplace subscribers

As of last year, approximately 3,300 high-income health insurance workplace subscribers received a monthly salary of more than 119 million KRW. This accounts for about 0.00016% of all workplace subscribers excluding dependents.

According to data titled 'Status of Subjects Subject to the Annual Salary Monthly Insurance Premium Ceiling' received on the 7th from the National Health Insurance Corporation by Kim Seon-min, acting leader of the Innovation Party and member of the National Assembly’s Health and Welfare Committee, the number of workplace subscribers who paid the highest ceiling amount of health insurance premiums on their monthly salary in 2024 reached 3,271.

Employees who receive a salary from their company in exchange for labor are basically required to pay health insurance premiums. This is called the 'salary monthly amount (total annual salary divided by months worked) insurance premium,' which workplace subscribers share equally with their company. The 2024 salary monthly insurance premium ceiling was 8,481,420 KRW. Converted to monthly salary, this amounts to 119.62 million KRW, and in annual salary terms, it reaches 1.4355 billion KRW.

Since workplace subscribers pay half of the salary monthly insurance premium themselves, the actual ceiling amount paid last year by ultra-high-income employees earning more than 1.4355 billion KRW annually was 4,240,710 KRW per month and 50,888,520 KRW annually.

Most of these individuals are not ordinary employees but owners of large or small and medium-sized enterprises earning tens or hundreds of billions of KRW annually, executives, professional CEOs, or chaebols (conglomerate) heads. This represents about 0.00016% of all workplace subscribers excluding dependents (19,883,677 people) as of last year.

The salary monthly insurance premium ceiling for this year rose to 9,008,340 KRW, which corresponds to a monthly salary of 127.056982 million KRW. Therefore, ultra-high-income employees earning about 127 million KRW or more per month are paying a health insurance premium of 4,504,170 KRW monthly, which is half of the ceiling amount, starting this year.