Nearly Half of Koreans Think They Belong to Low-Income Bracket
By Yoon Won-sup
Staff Reporter
About half of Koreans think they belong to the low-income bracket, according to a poll on Friday.
The survey, conducted by Media Research at the request of The Korea Times and its sister paper the Hankook Ilbo, showed that 47.2 percent of 1,000 respondents said they are low income earners (43.1 percent) or very low income earners (4.1 percent).
Only 51.4 percent of those polled said they are middle income earners while 0.6 percent considered themselves as high income earners.
A majority of people who work in agriculture and fishery, and blue-collar workers said they are low income earners with 64.5 percent and 57.7 percent, respectively, according to the survey. It showed people with less education tend to say they are lower income earners.
The survey also showed that 49.9 percent of the people said they will be better off in five years than now while 32.7 percent said there will be no change.
About 15.9 percent said they would be worse off in five years time.
People's expectation about their economic situation was negative compared with a survey in 2002, which showed 63.6 percent expected to be better off in five years while 4.7 percent said things would be worse.
Those with a high income and good education tend to look at their future in a positive way, according to the poll.
Regarding the tax system, the survey showed 80.6 percent think more tax should be imposed on high income earners while 10.1 percent liked the current system to remain and 6.9 percent want less tax on high income earners.
The 2002 survey showed 79.5 percent wanted more tax on high income earners while 5.6 percent liked the tax rate and 4.2 percent wanted less tax.
The survey was conducted last Saturday on 1,000 adults across the nation by phone on the occasion of the 53rd anniversary of the Hankook Ilbo. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percent at a confidence level of 95 percent.