SEOUL, Dec. 16 (Korea Bizwire) – The income gap between the haves and have-nots in South Korea narrowed in 2020 from a year earlier on the back of the government’s provision of emergency cash handouts amid the pandemic, data showed Thursday. The distribution ratio for disposable income, a key barometer of income equality, reached 5.85 [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Consumption inequality in South Korea worsened last year as the coronavirus pandemic undercut “discretionary” spending by lower-income earners due to toughened curbs on gatherings and business operation, a central bank report showed Friday. According to the report by the Bank of Korea, the consumption inequality index — a major [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — More than half of South Koreans are in favor of raising taxes for high income earners to mitigate the polarization that has deepened during the pandemic, a poll showed Sunday. In the survey of 1,000 South Koreans aged 18 or older conducted last week, 57.4 percent of respondents agreed [...]
SEJONG, Dec. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s household income rose in 2018 from a year earlier, and the income gap between the haves and have-nots narrowed, as employment situations of the low-income bracket improved amid efforts to bridge the income gap, a government report showed Tuesday. The average household earned 58.28 million won (US$49,688) [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — The income imbalance for singers and athletes is becoming serious. According to data submitted to Rep. Kim Doo-kwan from the National Tax Service, the annual total income of the top 28 earners, or one percent of the 2,758 who reported income as singers, was 136.5 billion won (US$117 million). [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 22 (Korea Bizwire) — A recent study has revealed that employees of large-sized companies in South Korea make three times as much as workers at small companies with fewer than four staff members, and that the income gap has widened over the last five years. In contrast, Japan has been making efforts to [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — The polarization of the South Korean economy has been accelerating ever since the country was stricken by the so-called IMF Crisis in 1997, which led to the introduction of neoliberal policies. The income gap among households has further widened over the last 20 years and is now ranked as [...]
SEJONG, Feb. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s household income inequality hit a record high in the fourth quarter of 2018, government data showed Thursday. An average household earned 4.6 million won (US$4,000) per month in the October-December period, up 3.6 percent from the previous year, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. The [...]
SEJONG, Oct. 24 (Korea Bizwire) – Top 1 percent of South Korean taxpayers earned an average 4.45 billion won (US$3.87 million) in investment income in 2016, data showed Wednesday. Their average investment income was 18.3 times bigger than the average income from salaries of top 1 percent earners, according to the data by the National [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — The nominal income of South Koreans belonging to the lower 40 percent of income earners in the second quarter of the year indicated the worst-ever drop recorded in the nation’s history when considering all previous second quarter data. Meanwhile, the nominal income belonging to the top 20 percent of [...]