[Reporter's Notebook] The Cry of Small Business Owners Standing at the Crossroads of Survival

"But can we really leave it off the list of issues? We have to at least air our grievances like this."

On April 29, at the policy agenda announcement event held by the Korea Federation of Micro Enterprises (KFME) ahead of the 21st presidential election, a KFME official made this lament to reporters. The federation had put reforming the minimum wage system at the top of its policy agenda. When reporters questioned whether this was realistic, the official responded with a sigh-laden tone.

Within the federation, there had been a slight sense of hope regarding the minimum wage issue until recently. The leading presidential candidate, Lee Jaemyung of the Democratic Party, had been appealing to the market with his so-called "centrist conservative" stance, which had somewhat encouraged the group. The attention paid to the meeting between KFME Chairman Song Chiyoung and candidate Lee just before the policy announcement was also related to this atmosphere.

At that meeting, Chairman Song conveyed the hardships faced by small business owners and made a policy proposal centered on reforming the minimum wage system to candidate Lee. However, after the meeting, Lee's position, confirmed directly and indirectly, was that "there will be no retreat on the minimum wage system." The Democratic Party, which controls the National Assembly, held a similar stance, leading to a growing perception within and outside the small business community that a reversal of the situation was unlikely, regardless of who becomes the next president. The sense of frustration and resignation felt at the policy announcement event was an extension of this mood.

Alongside minimum wage reform, the "emergency support payment for small business owners" strongly demanded by the federation also seems unlikely to become a priority for discussion, due to political and policy factors both within and outside the National Assembly, such as budget issues. In response to reporters' questions about the overall feasibility of the policy agenda, the repeated answers?"Please see this as a sign of how desperate we are," and "No matter how difficult it is, all we can do is keep insisting, appealing, and persuading"?seemed to reflect the reality and sense of helplessness faced by small business owners.

The uncertainty that pervades the domestic and international economic environment, combined with the dampened consumer sentiment caused by the state of emergency and impeachment crisis, is pushing small business owners?the weakest link in our economy?to the brink of collapse. In particular, the minimum wage system is producing adverse effects, such as taking away or reducing jobs for both employers and employees, but the increasingly narrow political arena is not even allowing for discussion on the issue.

For these people, questioning the feasibility of their policy agenda may have been a luxury. In that sense, their policy agenda should be heard not as a policy proposal, but as a scream on the edge of a cliff. With less than a month left before the presidential election, candidates are rolling out attractive pledges every day, but when it comes to the pleas of small business owners and ordinary citizens for help in reviving livelihoods, only abstract or hollow rhetoric continues to circulate. For most small business owners, this presidential election has become not a matter of ideology or values, but a matter of survival. Who, and with what words, can answer them?