Seocho’s Elderly Could Get More Aid

“The number of elderly people living in poverty is about 8,400 in this area only. So, we at Seocho-gu plan to give poor elderly priority in getting a traffic fair benefit for senior citizens when the plan is accepted by other beneficiaries living in this area.”

Seocho-gu in Southern Seoul set up a booth for a campaign to donate the traffic fair benefit for poor elderly at every public office in the area earlier in this month, and placed a bulletin for residents’ cooperation on the board. The plan is aimed at changing the rule of the traffic fair benefit for the elderly. The rule entitles everyone at the age of 65 and over to get 12,000 won--16,000 for the senior citizens living below the poverty line--regardless of how rich they are.

In Seocho-gu, the number of the beneficiaries is 25,000 now. Since the benefit is perceived as pocket money from the government among older people, 99 percent of the people at 65 and over make a point of getting the benefit each month. The amount of money that goes for the benefit is about 3.7 billion won, more than 42 percent of the total budget for the elderly.

The benefit is expected to give much more burdens to Seocho-gu as the population of older people is getting bigger. Seocho-gu finds it harder to secure budget for other welfare plans due to the ever-increasing budget for the traffic fair benefit. Worse yet, politicians are expected to significantly raise the benefit to 20,000 won to attract older voters.

The campaign to donate the traffic fair benefit to poor senior citizens was started by older people living relatively comfortably and concerned about the same thing as the Seocho-gu officials. Some old people had come to the Seocho-gu Office and said to give their benefit to the poor after they had been informed they are entitled to get the benefit from the office.

As part of the campaign, Seocho-gu reached an agreement to cooperate with the Seoul Community Chest of Korea last month. According to the agreement, the Seocho-gu Office will mail a donation receipt to the senior citizens who abandoned their entitlement to the benefit so that they would feel the joy of sharing. The office will also use all the benefit only for the poor in the Seocho area.

As the campaign is at its earlier stage, there are not many old people who donated their entitlement so far.

But, an official of the Seocho-gu Office said, “Quite a few senior citizens still don’t know about the campaign. As the campaign goes on, I think more and more people would join this campaign.”

Dong-Ki Sung esprit@donga.com