2분기 가계부채 1500조원 육박, 소득 양극화 심화: 한은 통계청
The income gap between the haves and have-not is steadily widening in Korea.
This comes amid rising household debt during the second quarter this year.
Kim Ji-yeon breaks down the digits for us.
Household debt in Korea rose to a new high during the April-to-June period this year... while the income gap widened.
Provisional figures released by the Bank of Korea on Thursday show the combined amount of household credit, composed of mortgage loans and credit card debt,... remained above the one-point-three-trillion-U.S.-dollar mark in the second quarter... a near two-percent increase from the previous quarter.
The central bank says... household loans from banks, including mortgage loans... rose by more than eleven-point-four billion dollars.
Loans from non-banking institutions jumped by over two-point-three billion dollars.
Separate data released by Statistics Korea show the average monthly nominal income of households in the bottom 20-percent income bracket... fell in Q2 to its lowest level in 10 years -- to below 12-hundred dollars,... a nearly eight-percent drop from the same period last year.
On the other hand, the monthly income of households in the top 20-percent income bracket rose to around 81-hundred dollars in Q2,... marking a record-high on-year rate of increase of more than 10-percent.
The monthly average income overall increased by more than four-percent in Q2 from the same period last year to just over four-thousand dollars.
Inflation-adjusted real income also increased by nearly three-percent on-year.
An official from the statistics agency cited the main reasons for the growing gap... sluggish domestic consumption amid restructuring in the manufacturing sector... as well as falling income for small businesses... and slowing increases in employment.
Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News.
