Health ministry conducts welfare survey of 160,000 people

South Korea's health ministry said Tuesday it is conducting an eight-week survey of 160,000 people from Aug. 24 through Oct. 16 to identify households missing welfare support, focusing on those whose debts have threatened their livelihoods.

Outreach teams at local administrative welfare centers will assess households' circumstances and decide on tailored support. Debt-related cases include about 16,000 financially vulnerable households identified through records on financial delinquencies, suspended debt adjustments and rejected government-backed microfinance applications, as well as newly obtained data on victims of illegal private lending and vulnerable debtors.

The survey will also cover more than 13,000 young households confronting disruptions such as electricity or water cutoffs, as well as more than 10,000 people facing overlapping livelihood, housing, medical and employment problems.

By year-end, the ministry plans to bring the Financial Supervisory Service and Korea Legal Aid Corporation into its government-wide referral network for welfare services to financially distressed households.

The ministry held a meeting with financial and welfare agencies on Aug. 25 to review the identification and support of debt-crisis households and discuss further cooperation. The meeting followed a government suicide-prevention plan for isolated and crisis-hit households announced on Aug. 11.

The ministry said the plan calls for agencies to use financial-crisis data on excessive debt and illegal-lending damage as warning signs.

"Financial, livelihood and mental-health difficulties do not exist separately for people in crisis," Jin Young-joo, director general for social welfare policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said.

Government plans also include a direct hotline to refer households affected by illegal private lending and other financial crises to local governments, alongside faster, priority emergency welfare support for their living expenses.