Currently, the ‘Youth Basic Income system’ is being implemented in Gyeonggi-do as of July 2021. This is a policy that is implemented under the belief that basic income is essential to create a positive cycle of the economy, while the economic recession is gradually becoming structured after the advent of the COVID-19 era. Those in favor of the basic income system expect that if the basic income system is carried out nationwide, it will have a positive effect on the unemployment problem and the rapidly change industrial paradigm. However, the opposing side argues that the introduction of the basic income system will cause negative results due to the insignificant income redistribution effect, free riding, and financial problems. Let's take a look at the pros and cons of this basic income system with CAH.

What is Basic Income? It is a system in which the government pays a certain amount of cash as a minimum cost of living. In order to maintain a humane life for all members of society, government provides certain amount of cash regardless of whether they have a lot of wealth and income, and whether they work or not. The basic income system is characterized by its payment, which is in the form of cash without any conditions. The basic income system is a solution that can maintain the people's basic quality of life in a modern society dotted with industrial development and the disaster situation of COVID-19. It will arouse peoples’ will to work, and solve the inefficiency of the existing welfare system. To respond to the rapidly changing economic situation, the basic income should be introduced into Korean society for the following reasons.

First, a basic income can guarantee the basic livelihood of many people as a response to job market’s change. Today's society is developing with high technology and intensive capital, and the role human labor is constantly being diminished. The instability of employment brought about by the so-called “information revolution” is enormous. In fact, if you look at the change in the employment coefficient rate [1]of major industries announced by the Korea Institute for industrial Economics & Trade (KIET), the service and construction industries, which showed figures of 18.63 and 15.88 in 1995, sharply dropped to 6.68, 4,36 as of 2017. In other words, the number of jobs lost as much as the number decreased. Various technologies and robots that can replace human physical labor show high productivity and occupy the realm of knowledge labor. In fact, according to KDI, from 2005 to 2015, the average annual production increase in the semiconductor industry increased by 1 trillion won, while the number of workers decreased by about 1,500. As the number of jobs available for people to work decreases while the instability of employment increases, the overall price level rises, making it difficult to sustain a livelihood with the cost of labor alone. In addition, while the trend of dismantling regular workers in companies is also becoming a factor of instability, the basic income system can serve as a buffer against growing instability. The structural instability of society could be resolved if a basic income was provided to ensure the basic living rights of citizens and to relieve basic anxiety for employment.

Second, a basic income motivates the poor to have the will to work. Many opponents of the basic income system criticize it as a so-called “free-rider” problem that makes people dependent on welfare. However, the basic income system can have the opposite effect. In the social security system, a poor person's willingness to work is hampered when his/her income increases through great effort, leaving him out of the support he can receive. This is the ‘blind spot for welfare’. Even though it is a tight income to support a family and maintain a daily life, the existing social security system support disappears due to the steady income. If such situation takes place, despite working, people have no choice but to live a more difficult life than when they benefited from the existing welfare system. To make the poor to have the motivation to find employment and work, the state should promote various policies and projects to realistically lead to employment, no matter how much social cost is incurred in the beginning. According to the ‘Pre-/Post-Investigation Comparison Report on the Analysis of Gyeonggi Youth Basic Income Policy Effects’ prepared in 2019, experiments dealing with the relationship between basic income and labor cessation and their results were found. The Canadian Mincome experiment (a basic income experiment conducted in Manitoba, Canada in the 1970s) did not show any statistically significant discontinuation of work. Limited to mothers and teenagers, working hours have been reduced in some groups. On the contrary, a significant increase in labor was also reported. In the case of the Namibian Basic Income pilot, overall economic activity increased after the start of basic income, and in the experiment in Madhya Pradesh, India, the total amount of adults’ labor increased. It was found that women's labor increased, and the only labor-giving population group was children. Evidence of practical experiments is emerging one after another to refute the general view that labor incentives will decrease. Many revisions and policies need to be supplemented before these results are applied to actual society, but we can confirm that basic income can bring about the will to work.

Third, the basic income system does not infringe on individual life and can overcome the inefficiency of the existing welfare system. The basic income is income that is given uniformly without being monitored by the state, so there is relatively little invasion of any individual territory. In existing social security system, a number of procedures are taken to determine whether individuals fall within the beneficiary's domain. This results in a large waste of social cost. Also, due to various difficult conditions, Many people in the blind spot do not receive benefits even though they need welfare benefits. On the other hand, since basic income is given uniformly regardless of wealth and marital status or household membership, it is the least intrusive to the individual than any other social security system. In addition, as society becomes increasingly diversified, changes in family members also make the inefficiency of the basic welfare system more prominent. In fact, the number of households living together is increasing significantly every year. All the processes of visiting each household to check whether they live together to determine whether they receive welfare benefits requires a lot of labor and time. Furthermore, living together is considered a privacy, and concerns about invasion of privacy are also raised, so the existing welfare system is quite lagging in a diversified society. In addition, the current system, in which living as an individual guarantees a greater basic income than living in a community, has the opposite effect of dissolving the community and making them live separately. In some cases, people they live together, but they can receive a higher allowance when the residence is separately registered. So there are frequent cases of cheating on the residence or separation.

The sole fact that basic income is being discussed can prove that the government is putting more effort into guaranteeing citizens' right to live. The main reason for implementing a basic income is that it can alleviate the economic burden of many people in the era of the coming 4^th industrial revolution, give hope to the poor, and improve individual lives. We must not forget that all the reasons in favor of the basic income system are ultimately to enable the most fundamental happiness in life. Opposition to basic income simply because the social cost is huge in the beginning is a short-sighted view. To Advocate about giving money to everyone unconditionally is not the right purpose. The goal is to create a society where everyone can live a minimum standard of living. As an effort to create such a society, a basic income system should be introduced into our society.