• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.154-165
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• 2020

With a long-lasting pandemic of COVID-19, we have faced unprecedented socioeconomic threats. The regulation of human exchange has exposed us not only to the threat of health and medical care problems, but also to the burden of the contraction of economic activity. The outbreak of COVID-19 did give us an opportunity to reexamine the social safety net which has been prepared for such crisis situations. The current study, in this vein, aims to investigate the impact of evaluations of social safety nets on the trust in government and on individual willingness to accept tax increases. To this end, this study has explored the data from a survey conducted on 1,000 adult men and women across the country (South Korea) in May, 2020, when COVID-19 has entered a pandemic phase. The analysis result then has shown that the evaluation of social safety net after the outbreak of COVID-19 had a positive impact on the trust in the government, which in turn led to the increase of the willingness to accept tax increases. Moreover, the positive impact of trust in government on the willingness to accept tax increases has been more amplified when the income level was increased. These results could contribute to laying the theoretical foundation for restructuring the policies and systems for the post COVID-19 era.