More Benefits Slated for Families With 3 or More Children

Families with three or more children from August will get discounts on their electric bills and get priority consideration for 10 percent of public apartments and rental houses.

The lower-income class with low credit scores will be eligible for loans more easily after up to 300 financial institutions begin to offer microcredit in the second half of the year. This month, the number of households getting subsidies for child rearing and education will increase from 350,000 to 620,000 as the scope of beneficiaries expands from households that make less than 120 percent of the minimum cost of living to those belonging to the bottom half of the income bracket.

“It will take a long time before the economy fully recovers and the benefits of job creation and higher income affect low-income households,” Strategy and Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun said. “We will complement and add policies for them.”

The government announced yesterday that it will implement these policies in the second half this year to improve the living conditions of low-income households suffering from the economic crisis.

The combined amount of subsidies in six areas – finance for low-income households, child rearing and education, health care, housing, small merchants and women – will be 2.09 trillion won (2.03 million U.S. dollars) to be derived from the main and supplementary budgets.

Microcredit will be offered by building a national microcredit network through the Microfinance Foundation. This will help lower-income earners stand on their own two feet and encourage the existing project being carried out sporadically by 40 organizations including the Health, Welfare and Family Ministry, the Financial Services Commission, the Small and Medium Business Administration, municipal and provincial governments, and civic groups.

Measures will also be taken to prevent people from receiving multiple subsidies from different organizations and remaining isolated from the system.

Households with more than three children had received discounts on electric bills only when they used more than 300 kilowatt hours per month, but they will get an unconditional discount of 20 percent from Aug. 1. As a result, 517,000 households will get a monthly discount of 8,273 won (6.86 dollars).

They will also have priority consideration for 10 percent of public housing and rental units, up from three percent. In other words, 10 percent of all public housing and rental units will go to families with three or more children.

cha@donga.com