DP Says Social, Economic Polarization Deepens
By Lee Tae-hoon
Staff Reporter
The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) claimed Wednesday that social and economic polarization has widened since President Lee Myung-bak took office two years ago.
Evaluating two years of the Lee administration in a recent report, the DP said the income gap between the top 10 percent and the middle 50 percent of households has widened from 7.35 times in 2007 to 8.41 times in 2009.
It added that the Lee administration's tax reductions for the rich and its eagerness to eliminate critics of its policies have produced the socioeconomic polarization.
The gap in monthly income between regular and non-regular workers increased from 732,000 won to 999,000 won during the period, DP officials said.
The DP was skeptical that President Lee will be able to keep a campaign promise of creating 3 million jobs during his five-year tenure.
It said the employment rate dropped to 57 percent in 2009, down three percentage points from 2007.
The country has lost about a half a million jobs over the past two years, the party said.
It added that women's participation in the workforce has quickly dwindled, noting 100,300 jobs for women were axed in 2009 alone.
On the nation's growing debts, the party said these soared to 360 trillion won in 2009, up 61.1 trillion won from 298.9 trillion won in 2007.
Party officials attributed the increase partly to state-initiated construction projects, including plans to refurbish four of the country's major rivers.
The DP said the country's household debt soared to 712.8 trillion won in 2009, up from 630.7 trillion won two years ago.
It criticized the government's reduction of the education budget and its failure to check soaring spending on private tutoring.
The education budget for 2010 was reduced to 37.8 trillion won from 39.2 trillion in 2009, DP sources said.
They claimed that the number of cram schools has doubled over the past one-and-a-half years.
The party was also critical about Lee's lack of leadership in fostering the nation's IT industry and drawing up measures to counter the nation from becoming an aged society.
The Economist Intelligence Unit placed Korea 16th on its IT industry competitiveness list of 66 countries, down from third in 2007.
The nation's total birthrate dropped to 1.22 in 2009, down from 1.26 in 2007, according to the United Nations Population Fund.
Meanwhile, the Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice (CCEJ) said in a report released the same day that the Lee administration has failed to meet expectations on welfare and health care issues.
The CCEJ said the government's job creation policy has been short-sighted and that welfare projects for low-income earners lack long-term planning.
It also pointed out that the government's promotion of its medical tourism industry has proven to be a failure, saying there is no evidence that the number of foreign patients has increased over the past two years.