(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Seongho Seong = In the future, a legal basis has been established to allow citizens to receive welfare benefits such as child allowances, parental benefits, and basic pensions without having to apply first.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced on the 1st that six amendments to related laws to improve application for welfare benefits were approved at the plenary session of the National Assembly.
Until now, welfare benefits have been operated on the principle of application-based welfare, meaning that if you fail to apply, you will not receive the benefits even if you have the right to receive them. However, with this amendment to the law, it has become possible to provide welfare benefits as soon as eligibility for benefits is confirmed using information held by the government.
Among the bills passed on this day, the amendment to the Framework Act on Social Security gives national and local governments responsibility for identifying and supporting citizens at social risk, and allows social security benefits to be paid in accordance with relevant laws even if there is no application from citizens.
Accordingly, the amendment to the Social Security Benefits Act establishes basic principles to provide appropriate social security benefits even if the application is not made in accordance with the citizen's application, and includes general procedures so that if eligibility for welfare benefits is confirmed, the application is considered to have been applied and can be investigated and paid.
In addition, since child allowance, parental allowance, and first meeting voucher are universal benefits that all citizens can receive when a child is born, the Child Allowance Act was revised to eliminate the benefit application process and completely revamp the payment process.
In particular, through this revision, the payment period for child allowances was changed from 'the month of application' to 'the month of birth', and the payment of first meeting vouchers was changed from discretionary to mandatory.
In the case of the child allowance, which pays 100,000 won per month to children under the age of 13, previously, if an application was made 60 days after birth, the child allowance could not be received from the month of birth to the month before the month of application. However, from now on, children will receive the allowance immediately after birth without an application.
In addition, the amendments to the Basic Pension Act and the Disability Pension Act, which were passed, also allow for investigation and payment without a separate application once eligibility for pension is confirmed.
Basic and disabled pensions are welfare benefits provided selectively to specific citizens after a separate income and asset survey, rather than to all citizens.
The recently revised Basic Pension Act provides a legal basis for disabled pension recipients to be considered as having applied for the basic pension when they turn 65.
Previously, when a recipient of the disability pension turned 65, the basic benefit of the disability pension was converted to the basic pension, but there was a limit to not receiving the pension if the person did not apply for the basic pension separately.
The revised Disability Pension Act also considers that severely disabled people aged 18 or older who receive living and medical benefits have applied for the disabled pension.
In addition, amendments to the Social Security Benefits Act and the National Basic Livelihood Security Act, which allow public officials in charge to apply ex officio for welfare benefits for those receiving support in a crisis, also passed the plenary session on this day.
With this revision, public officials in charge can now apply ex officio for people who are in a crisis and have difficulty maintaining their livelihood, such as those who attempted suicide or those whose crisis situation has not been resolved even after emergency support.
In particular, in cases where the public official in charge applies ex officio, financial, credit, and insurance information can be investigated without the consent of the beneficiary, making it possible to quickly provide welfare benefits.
A legal basis has also been established for benefits such as immunity and rewards for public officials in charge so that ex officio applications can be activated.
The partial amendments to the 6th Improvement Act of these applicants will be submitted and approved by the State Council and will take effect three months after their promulgation.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to complete revisions to subordinate laws and improvements to the social security information system within the next three months.
Minister of Health and Welfare Jeong Eun-kyung said, "This revision of the law is significant in that it has laid the institutional foundation for the first time to improve the application-based principle of welfare benefits," and added, "We will build a tight welfare safety mat by improving the application-based principle to realize active welfare."
