Income Inequality Reduced Under the Moon Administration: Data

Credit: Public domain.

Statistics Korea 통계청, the government agency in charge of collecting official statistics, issued the annual Household Finance and Welfare Survey 가계금융복지조사 for 2020 on December 17, 2021. According to the analysis by Professor ChangHwan Kim of Kansas University, inequality was reduced significantly throughout the Moon Jae-in 문재인 administration.

Although the previous Park Geun-hye 박근혜 administration also reduced inequality, the Moon administration reduced the gap at triple the speed. Particularly notable is the fact that under the Moon administration, the disposable income of the bottom 20% in income improved significantly: the lowest decile saw a 10% increase from 2017 to 2020, and the second lowest decile, a 6.6% increase in the same time period.