hankyoreh

The degree of income disparity was 7.66 last year, the highest in the nation’s history. The ratio was produced by dividing individual income into five groups. This means that the average income of the upper 20 percent of the population is 7.66 times that of the lower 20 percent. The gap has widened continuously from the 7.23 recorded in 2003.

This gap is one of the biggest issues for our society. This is due to polarization between small and large companies; the collapse of the middle class and small, self-employed businesspeople; and the rapid increase in the number of irregular workers is already taking place across the country. The status of irregular workers, in particular, is increasingly declining. The widening income disparity is not solely an economic issue, and will become a factor contributing to social insecurity in the long term. The urgent task for the government is to prepare a new set of solutions.

However, there are no measures for easing income disparity in the policies of President-elect Lee Myung-bak’s incoming administration. There are only unrealistic measures for achieving seven percent annual economic growth and creating three million new jobs. For the livelihood of the general population, the incoming administration has prepared minor measures such as slashing cell-phone call rates by 20 percent and reducing oil-related taxes. The problems of income disparity and socioeconomic polarization cannot be solved in this way. The government should look for solutions within the social structure.

The nation’s big business-oriented economic structure should be transformed into one focused on smaller firms, and the quality of labor should be improved by granting regular status to irregular workers. We cannot prepare for the future with an old economic system that is dependant on cheap wages. The new administration should also prepare a plan for creating stable, high-quality jobs, rather than simply increasing the number of jobs with irregular status by starting civil engineering and public works projects as planned. In this way, we will have a more stable society and a better ability to activate consumer spending. As a result, the nation will have a foundation on which to increase development.

The general public has raised an increasing number of complaints against the increase in socioeconomic polarization. According to recent surveys executed by Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun and Britain’s BBC, Korea has the highest ratio of people who are dissatisfied with socioeconomic polarization. Up to 86 percent of Koreans are discontent with the nation’s income disparity.

Honest measures to improve the livelihood of the general public emerge should emerge from the principles of stable employment and a stable income. These are issues that cannot be solved by the formal, abstract slogans that have been presented as policy by the incoming administration, such as job creation, support for the financially isolated segment of the population, the revitalization of traditional markets and the protection of small merchants. President-elect Lee’s administration should devise concrete solutions for income disparity and socioeconomic polarization.




Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]