• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.53
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• pp.129-153
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• 2003

This study examines the socio-economic impacts of recent welfare reform in the United States. Based on the neo-conservative critique to the traditional public assistance system for low-income families, the 1996 welfare reform has given greater emphases on reducing welfare dependency and increasing work effort and self-sufficiency among welfare recipients. In particular, the welfare reform legislation instituted 60-month lifetime limits on cash assistance, expanded mandatory work requirements, and placed financial penalties for noncompliance. With the well-timed economic boom in the second half of the 1990s, the welfare reform seems to achieve considerable progress; welfare caseload has declined sharply to reach less than 50% of its 1994 peak, single mothers' labor force participation has increased substantially, and child poverty has decreased. In spite of these good signals, the welfare reform also has several potential problems. Many welfare leavers participate in the labor market, but not all (or most) of them. The economic well being of working welfare leavers did not increased significantly, because earnings increase was canceled out by parallel decrease in welfare benefits. Furthermore, most of working welfare leavers are employed in jobs with poor employment stability and low wages, making them highly vulnerable to frequent layoff, long-time joblessness, persistent poverty, and welfare recidivism. Another serious problem of the welfare reform is that a substantial number of welfare recipients are faced with extreme difficulties in finding jobs, because they have severe barriers to employment. The new welfare system with 5-year time limit can severely threaten the livelihoods of these people. The welfare reform presupposes that welfare recipients can achieve self-reliance by increasing their labor market activities. However, empirical evidences suggest that many people are unable to respond to the new, work-oriented welfare strategy. It may be a very difficult task to achieve both objectives of the welfare reform((1) providing adequate income security for low-income families and (2) promoting self-sufficiency) at the same time, because sometimes they are conflicting each other. With this in mind, a possible solution can be to distinguish welfare recipients into "(Very)-Hard-to-Employ" group and "(Relatively)-Ready-to-Work" group, based on elaborate examinations of a wide range of personal conditions. For the former group, the primary objective of welfare policies should be the first one(providing income security). For the "Ready-to-Work" group, follow-up services to promote job retention and advancement, as well as skill-training and job-search services, are very important. The U. S. experiences of the welfare reform provide some useful implications for newly developing Korean public assistance policies for the able-bodied low-income population.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.63-75
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• 2010

This study explicitly identifies the main values that rural welfare recipients reveal when they talk about their experiences with welfare and welfare reform. An inductive analysis of values is conducted using interview data from 49 current and former recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) residing in the states of Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, and New York. Seven main values that emerge from the data are self-esteem, autonomy, uniqueness, advancement, security, independence, and fairness. A conceptual diagram of these values is developed to illustrate how these values are related

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.33-42
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• 2019

Purpose: many domestic welfare programs use the amount of health insurance premiums as a way of measuring individuals' income levels for administrative convenience. As health insurance reform has been made, we examines the income level is still appropriately measured by the health insurance premiums for the employment success package as one of domestic welfare program. Methodology/Approach: we investigate whether the upper limit of the premiums of the self-employed health insured is appropriate or not after healthcare reform, which currently calculated by multiplying the insurance premium of the employee based insured by the adjustment factor (1.2). Findings: we examined appropriateness of the adjustment factors by comparing the premiums before and after the healthcare reform by utilizing the national health insurance data as well as Korea Welfare panel data. We found that the new value of adjustment factor (1.0~1.1) is smaller than the current one (1.2). Practical Implications: to improve the equity between the employee and the self-employed insured after the health insurance reform, the adjustment factor should be lower.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.69 no.2
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• pp.9-30
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• 2017

Generally, regime shift occurs less frequently than policy change and/or government change. Regime shift needs alterations and changes along the three critical components which constitute a domestic regime: (1) the character of the socioeconomic coalition that rules the country; (2) the political and economic institutions through which power is acquired and exercised; and (3) the public policy profile that give political direction to the nation. This paper tries to examine characteristics of the welfare regime of Korea, and explore policy reform options for the welfare regime shift in Korea. From the viewpoint of livelihood security perspective, I firstly tries to examine development process of Korean welfare regime and specify the main characteristics of that regime. Secondly, I present three policy reform options: (1) reform of the formal political institutions such as electoral system and government type; (2) restructuring of the composition of government expenditure structure; and (3) reduction of the informal employment. These three policy reform options are related to the alteration of socioeconomic coalitions and the changes of the political and economic institutions. Instead of concluding remarks, I finally suggest two debate topics to the round table discussion.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.177-196
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• 2007

This paper analyzes welfare effects of revenue neutral tax reform using a small open economy dynamic general equilibrium model. We apply this model to the Korean data and examine welfare effects of various tax reforms; removal of capital income tax and/or labor income tax financed by consumption tax. We investigate both long run equilibrium and transitional dynamics. The results suggest that there are sizable welfare gains (1-3% of lifetime consumption) when factor income taxes are replaced by consumption tax. Overall gains are generated by long run gains despite short run welfare losses. However, there is welfare loss when capital income tax is replaced by labor income tax.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.46
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• pp.290-318
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• 2001

In 1981, Chile has fundamentally reformed the public pension system from the pay-as-you-go system (PAYGs) to the full funding defined contribution system managed by the private funding companies. The Chilean privatization reform influenced not only the neighbor South American countries but also the advanced countries. The United Kingdom contracted out the state earning related pension system. Australia and Sweden recently introduced the private investment accounts system. And now the hot debates on the privatization of the social security pension is going on in the United States of America. This wind of privatizing the public pension system is being backed up by the New Liberalism, the nowadays' strongest ideology. Besides, the theoretical and idealogical debate between the World Bank and the ILO/ISSA was happened in the middle of 1990s. The World Bank, the supporter of the international financial capital, insisted the introducing of the full funding individual accounts system and the abolition of the existing PAYGs. The ILO/ISSA apposed the World Bank's policies and advocated the moderate reform of the PAYGs. In this paper, I reviewed the Chilean reform, the World Bank's report and the opposing argument of the ILO/ISSA against it, and analysed the core issues of the two sides. Also, I tried to present the suggestions to the Korean public pension systems. Through the discussing the debate, we made certain of the importance of the basic issues in the social security system like equity vs. adequacy, inter-generational redistribution vs. intra-generational redistribution and welfare vs. economy, once again.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.44
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• pp.232-261
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• 2001

Because of their international importance, 'the Welfare Reforms' of the Thatcher government as well as Thatcherism were studied so much, and analysed so deeply. However, the existing studies mainly focused the institutional changes of the welfare state themselves and cynically criticized the decline of it. And, there is no study explained the Thatcher's reform as the changed balance of the British class strength. This means that the nature of the Thatcher's welfare reform is not scientifically clarified yet. So, I tried to examine this one again. For the purpose, I reviewed the nature of Thatcherism, described the changed welfare state, and analysed the result of the polling, the power dynamics of the Labour Party, the changed attitude of the Labour Party and the working class to the welfare state and Keynesianism, and the political attack of the Thatcher government on the working class and their response to it.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.33-46
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• 2016

In era of lowbirth, aging population, low growth and social polarization, the effective welfare delivery systems are taking on added significance than past years. Public housing welfare resources, such as public rental housing, housing voucher, affordable housing loan, are more diversified and expanded. These programs could work effectively by the comprehensive interlink and community based delivery system. From the standpoint of recipients, how effectively the substantial benefits of welfare resources being delivered to each individual is more important than how much welfare resources being produced totally. This study aimed to explore the reform of public housing welfare delivery system. For this purpose, diagnosed the current states and key issues related to public delivery system, and analyzed what kinds of housing welfare services should be strengthened, and finally suggested the collaboration among the public sectors (local government, LH, HUG, HF etc.) and the partnership with non-profit organizations. Main research implications are as follows. The main housing welfare services which could be categorized as the housing welfare center's role are advice & information offering, several public resources interlink and accessibility improvement, community based network construction, etc. And the most important key for successful delivery system reorganization is the collaborative operation of the public sectors and local government, non-profit organizations.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.32
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• pp.212-234
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• 1997

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.31
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• pp.219-246
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• 1997