President Lee Addresses Sky-High School Uniform Prices

Ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, President Lee Jae-myung repeatedly mentioned the prices of items that are closely related to everyday life, such as school uniforms and sanitary pads, and ordered stronger price management. Inside and outside the government, there are interpretations that this is a signal that the government will directly check the cost of living in a situation where high inflation continues, while some are criticizing it as a move to improve people’s livelihood ahead of local elections.

At a meeting of senior aides presided over at the Blue House on the 12th, President Lee ordered, “As school is about to start, please look into the issue of the appropriateness of the price of school uniforms.” He continued, “When I was mayor of Seongnam, it was around 300,000 won. Recently, the cost of purchasing school uniforms is said to be close to 600,000 won. They also say that (expensive school uniforms) are a ‘spine breaker’ for parents.” At the same time, he asked, “In general, we import a lot of things, so please consider whether it is reasonable to charge such a high price, and if there is a problem, what measures can be taken.”

President Lee ordered a related review, saying, “Rather than providing money to companies, I would like to create something like a school uniform producer cooperative to create domestic jobs and make materials as domestically produced as possible, which would help develop the domestic industry.”

At the meeting, President Lee repeatedly emphasized policies to improve people’s livelihood. He said, “The first principle of state administration is to change the lives of the people,” and “Policy results are only confirmed on the ground in the lives of the people.” He continued, “It is important to create future growth engines such as artificial intelligence policy, K-culture, and tourism, but what is more important than anything else is to quickly and significantly improve the lives of the people in the field, even if it is small.”

He added, “It is important to quickly discover and execute tasks that can concretely change the lives of the people, rather than being caught up in only large, difficult, and time-consuming agendas.”

Strong orders were also issued regarding inflation measures. President Lee said, “Yesterday, the Ministerial Task Force on Special Management of Consumer Prices was launched. In addition to short-term measures, we must thoroughly monitor unfair transactions such as collusion and monopoly of specific products,” and asked, “Please do your best to manage prices by taking preemptive measures to improve structural problems at each stage of distribution.”

He also mentioned the possibility of unfair profits by some companies in relation to tariff quotas and said, “Please thoroughly block the possibility of exploiting gaps in the policy, and if such a thing actually happens, take strict responsibility and take action.”

President Lee also mentioned the price of sanitary pads at a recent meeting and said, “We talked about sanitary pads a while ago, and it seemed like the prices of sanitary pads are going down little by little. We can do as much as we want, but we haven’t done it until now.” Regarding the price of agricultural and livestock products, he pointed out, “The distribution structure of agricultural products is strange, and the price of livestock products has plummeted, but the price of meat has not fallen. It is a problem of the national system.”

The fact that the President directly mentions living prices every day and orders inspections is interpreted as a result of the judgment that a preemptive response is inevitable in a situation where price stimulating factors such as increased market liquidity and uncertainty in the global supply chain overlap.

There is also an interpretation that this is a ploy to raise trust in the new government’s policies that can be felt by the public by preventing instability in living prices ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. However, some in the political world are criticizing this move to check prices, saying it is a measure to improve people’s livelihood ahead of local elections.

President Lee also mentioned the issue of increasing health insurance out-of-pocket costs for outpatients with mild symptoms. Blue House Spokesperson Kang Yoo-jeong said in a briefing that day, “President Lee asked the Senior Secretary for Social Affairs whether a plan to increase the contribution was being considered and whether measures for benefit abuse were in place,” adding, “He checked whether structural measures were being prepared to eradicate excessive treatment and unfair billing.” He added, “We ordered a review because there are aspects of (health insurance) being excessively abused even in patients with very mild symptoms, and this has been confirmed this time.”

In addition, after receiving a report from the Senior Secretary’s Office on plans to expand health insurance coverage for hair loss treatment for young people, he instructed, “I hope we will gather more opinions through social discussion rather than making a decision right away.”

In addition, regarding measures to improve the comprehensive wage system, he said, “Although labor, management, and government are already discussing legislating related matters and are pushing for revision of the law, wouldn’t it be better to first implement the parts that can be implemented through subordinate laws or guidelines even before the revision is made?”

Spokesperson Kang added, “Although the basis for enacting (improvement of the comprehensive wage system) has been established through past precedents, the pace of legislation has been slow recently.” He added, “If there are areas where labor, management, and government have reached an agreement, we proposed to implement it first in a different way rather than waiting for legislation.”

The comprehensive wage system is a method of paying statutory allowances, including overtime allowance, in the basic salary regardless of actual working hours, or paying them as a flat allowance separately from the basic salary.