Enno Schmidt, co-founder of the Swiss basic income initiative, made a film on Jae-Myeong Lee, the mayor of Seongnam City, talking his plan for ‘Youth Dividend’.

Jae-Myeong Lee wants to introduce a basic income for the young people in his city, a city of one million inhabitants, 30 km southeast of the capital Seoul. While he was working on this he heard from Prof. Kang Nam-Hoon, a pioneer of the basic income movement in South Korea, about the idea of an unconditional basic income. For Lee this idea is linked with democracy. He expects and hopes that Switzerland will take the first steps in this direction with the upcoming 2016 referendum. He said this would make it easier for other countries to follow and would be a big help for him as welll. The youth basic income in Seongnam City could be a first step in South Korea for further steps towards the introduction of an unconditional basic income for everyone in the country.

Geum Min and Enno Schmidt interviewed the mayor on 19th June 2015, during the International Basic Income Conference in Seoul. This was held as a prelude to the next Basic Income Earth Network Congress, to be held summer 2016 in Seoul.

A film by Enno Schmidt, 8 Min.

In Korean with English subtitles.

English translation by Ji-Young Moon and Barb Jacobson