Government spends less than 1 trillion won supporting vulnerable people last year

It was found that the government did not arbitrarily spend more than KRW 1 trillion of the budget to support the vulnerable last year.

Of last year's spending budget passed by the ruling and opposition parties in the National Assembly, the government did not arbitrarily spend more than 1 trillion won on support for the vulnerable. The budget for soldiers’ salaries, military welfare, and support for the underprivileged in employment were each spent hundreds of billions of won less than planned. By ministry, the budget for the Ministry of Environment was not spent by nearly 10 percent. With the government's wallet thinned by a tax revenue shortfall of more than 56 trillion won last year, it is pointed out that even the budget, which is essential for supporting the vulnerable, has been reduced.

According to data from the Ministry of Economy and Finance obtained by Kyunghyang Shinmun on February 25 through the office of lawmaker Lee Tan-hee of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), the largest unspent amount of the government's business units in last year's budget, excluding inter-fund transactions, reserves and local grants and subsidies, was medical benefits, one of the basic living security systems of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The unused amount amounted to 700 billion won. Unspent money refers to money that the government did not spend out of the budget finalized by the National Assembly.

The unspent budget for the basic pension, which is paid to the elderly, also amounted to 336 billion won. Combined, the medical benefits and basic pension programs amounted to more than 1 trillion won in unspent budgets for the vulnerable.

Civil groups have pointed out that "medical benefits and basic pensions are compulsory expenditures, and it is difficult to understand how such a large amount of unspent money is generated." An official from the Ministry of Economy and Finance said, "The budget for medical benefits was set higher than usual last year due to the possibility of having to divert the budget in response to uncertain situations, such as compensation for hospital losses related to coronavirus," emphasizing that "there were no cases of vulnerable people not receiving support."

However, this does not change the fact that the government did not spend more than 1 trillion of the funds authorized by the National Assembly to support the vulnerable. In fact, unlike last year, the amount of unused medical benefits was only 40 million won in 2022 and 10 million won in 2021.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare's unspent budget amounted to 1.28 trillion won last year, as the ministry failed to spend a large amount of its budget to support vulnerable people, including the budgets for autonomous social service investment project (12.1 billion won), low-income people's self-support (11.4 billion won), and supporting long-term care insurance for the elderly (7.3 billion won).

Other ministries also had large unused budgets related to the vulnerable and civil welfare. In the case of the Ministry of National Defense, more than 500 billion won was spent less than planned on military personnel, including soldiers’ salaries (309.9 billion won), military welfare support (161.9 billion won), military facility improvement (69.2 billion won), and the expenses for cladding (46.6 billion), medical treatment (27.4 billion), and meals (18.6 billion).

In the case of the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the amount of budget that supports the underprivileged, including the National Employment Support System (300 billion won), elimination of social insurance blind spots (212.2 billion won), youth internship program for small and medium-sized enterprises (169.7 billion won), the Young Tomorrow Deduction (98.7 billion won), and support for skill development for the unemployed (52.7 billion won) were all underfunded. The government recently announced that it would significantly expand the scope of national scholarship support, but the Ministry of Education's budget for customized national scholarship support (106.6 billion won) last year was more than 100 billion won less than planned.

When comparing the amount of unspent budget by ministries, the Ministry of Environment stood out. The ministry failed to spend 9.45 percent (1.20 trillion) of its budget expenditure (12.64 trillion) last year, especially because 680.6 billion won in air pollution source management budget was not used.

The Ministry of Environment's unused budget rate is the fourth highest among the 19 ministries, after the Ministry of Economy and Finance (36.07 percent), the Ministry of Education (10.64 percent), and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (10.22 percent). But considering that most of the Ministry of Economy and Finance's unused budget is for transactions between reserve funds and funds, and the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s unused budget was resulted from the reduction in grants and grant taxes, the government spent less of its environmental budget than planned last year.

In addition, the amount of unspent budget (99.3 billion won) for various research and development support programs, including government-funded research institutes, reached nearly 100 billion won. The budget for supporting research institutes affiliated with the National Research Council of Science and Technology alone was spent 42.9 billion won less. More than 10 billion won was also unused on the budget related to the settlement of history and support for democratization and veterans. The budget includes support for finding the truth of the May 18 Gwangju Uprising (2 billion won), honoring for veterans and discharged soldiers (1.9 billion won), operating a past affairs reorganization committee for truth and reconciliation (1.5 billion won), stabilizing the life of discharged soldiers (1.4 billion won), and restoring the honor of people involved in pro-democracy movements (400 million won).

Analysts say that such a large-scale budget disuse, including the budget to support the vulnerable, is related to the largest-ever "tax puncture" of more than 56 trillion won last year. Although the government says it did not intentionally cause disuse despite the lack of tax revenue, experts say that considering the government’s overall tax cut stance, the execution of expenditures excluding statutory mandatory expenditures in each ministry would have been forced to shrink.

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.