The Basic Income Party (BIP; ) is a

single-issue Single-issue politics involves political campaigning or political support based on one essential policy area or idea. Political expression One weakness of such an approach is that effective political parties are usually coalitions of faction ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

in South Korea advocating for a

universal basic income Universal basic income (UBI) is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a minimum income in the form of an unconditional transfer payment, i.e., without a means test or need to perform Work (hu ...

(UBI). For the 2024 Parliamentary election, the Basic Income Party formed a coalition with the Open Democratic Party and the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

, called the New Progressive Alliance.

History

The Basic Income Party came into existence when the ninth leadership board of the Labor Party led by

Yong Hye-in Yong Hye-in (, born 12 April 1990) is a South Korean civil society activist and leader of the Basic Income Party. She was one of the main proponents of the silent march campaign, ''Stay Where You Are (South Korea), Stay Where You Are'', that or ...

resigned on 15 July. Before the official founding of the party on 19 January 2020, the Basic Income Party began establishing local chapters of the party across the cities and provinces of South Korea with the catch phrase ₩"600,000 a month for all." The party announced via their Facebook page on 7 November that they reached 5,000 members. The party officially registered with the National Election Commission on 19 January 2020. The party puts a strong emphasis on that their members are mostly young adults. The party joined the Platform Party (party-list of the Democratic Party) on 21 March 2020 for the

2020 South Korean legislative election Legislative elections were held in South Korea on 15 April 2020. All 300 members of the National Assembly were elected, 253 from first-past-the-post constituencies and 47 from proportional party lists. They were the first elections held under ...

. Two candidates ran for

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

was elected under the

party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a system of proportional representation based on preregistered Political party, political parties, with each party being Apportionment (politics), allocated a certain number of seats Apportionm ...

. After the election, Yong rejoined the party. The party declared its support for Jin Kyo-hoon, the candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, in the Gangseo-gu mayor by-election. During the

2025 South Korean presidential election Presidential elections in South Korea, Early presidential elections were held in South Korea on 3 June 2025. Democratic Party (South Korea, 2015), Democratic Party nominee and former opposition leader Lee Jae-myung defeated the ruling People P ...

, the Basic Income Party opted to not run a candidate and instead endorsed Democratic candidate Lee Jae-myung. Upon the victory of Lee, Democratic MP Kang Yoo-jung was appointed as the spokesperson for the presidential office. This allowed Basic Income Party candidate for proportional representation, Choi Hyuk-jin, to assume Kang's seat and Choi entered the National Assembly as the second Member of Parliament for the Basic Income Party. However, Choi announced on his personal Facebook page that he will not return to the Basic Income Party, breaking the election agreement between the Basic Income Party and the Democratic Party. In response, Yong Hye-in, the leader of the Basic Income Party, declared that she would withdraw her nomination for Choi Hyuk-jin and urged his expulsion from the Democratic Party. Choi was sworn in as a Member of Parliament, and subsequently expelled from the Democratic Party (due to the electoral agreement between the parties), thus began sitting as an independent.

Ideology

As of 2019, the party advocated for the implementation of a

₩ The won sign , is a currency symbol. It represents the South Korean won, the North Korean won and, unofficially, the old Korean Empire won, Korean won. Appearance Its appearance is "W" (the first letter of "Won") with a horizontal strike ...

600,000 (then roughly equivalent to 500

United States dollar The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

s) per month

for all citizens of South Korea. In the March 2022 presidential election the party's candidate, Oh Jun-ho, ran on a policy of a universal basic income of 650,000 South Korean won (then $530) a month for all adults in South Korea. Although the party has no official ideology, it and its former leader, Shin Ji-hye, have been described as socially liberal, advocating

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

and

LGBT rights Rights affecting lesbian, Gay men, gay, Bisexuality, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the Capital punishmen ...

and seeking to improve the

social safety net A social safety net (SSN) consists of non-contributory assistance existing to improve lives of vulnerable families and individuals experiencing poverty and destitution. Examples of SSNs are previously-contributory social pensions, in-kind and foo ...

and remedy social disadvantages.

Election results

President

Legislature

References

External links

* {{basic income 2020 establishments in South Korea Universal basic income in South Korea Political parties established in 2020 Political parties in South Korea Feminist parties Single-issue political parties Liberal parties in South Korea Progressive parties in South Korea Social liberal parties Political parties supporting universal basic income