A motorcycle drives through an empty road in Daegu on Feb. 20, 2020. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, March 16 (Korea Bizwire) — Nearly 50 percent of South Koreans support a proposal to provide cash to citizens to help them tackle the economic fallout of the new coronavirus, a poll showed Monday.
In the survey by Realmeter on 505 people, 48.6 percent of the respondents favored the idea that the government temporarily adopt “anti-disaster basic income.”
The outcome compared with 34.3 percent who oppose the cash provision.
The COVID-19 outbreak has sparked a debate over whether the government should consider providing basic income to people as the potentially protracted situation will weigh on smaller firms and business owners’ livelihoods.
The proposal was mostly backed by supporters of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and the southwestern province, the poll showed.
Jeonju, a southwestern city, said last week it will pay 527,000 won (US$429.15) each to about 50,000 citizens suffering economic losses from the coronavirus outbreak.
The poll, commissioned by cable news channel YTN, had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points and a 95 percent confidence level.
(Yonhap)
