Presidential candidates of the ruling and opposition parties gathered in the SBS D Forum on November 18 to explain their solutions for youth hierarchy issues, the climate crisis, and regional imbalances.
It marked the first time the four major candidates have gathered in one place since their parties elected them as presidential hopefuls.
“Unfortunately, young people of today have become the first vulnerable people in history,” said Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in his speech at the SBS D Forum.
“They do have a much fewer opportunities to move up to higher classes in society than in the past,” candidate Lee said. “They are struggling for survival itself like participants in the hit show ‘Squid Game’.”
“As a politician, I feel a strong sense of responsibility,” Lee said. “We need to reduce inequality experienced by young people and bridge social gaps. We need to eliminate blind spots and widen social safety nets and create more opportunities. To this end, we need to introduce basic youth income, basic youth housing, and basic youth finance.”
Lee then stressed the importance of fairness-based growth. “The causes of extreme conflicts and cracks in our society are lack of opportunities and inequality due to low growth,” Lee continued.
“A great social compromise is needed to correct imbalance between large companies and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), capital and labor, regular and non-regular workers, men and women.”
Lee underscored the need for massive investment by the government. He said, “Like the New Deal during the Great Depression in the United States, we need to turn this transitional crisis into an opportunity for new growth through massive investment by the government.”
“We need the government's massive investment in educational innovation, basic science, high-tech technology, and infrastructure to foster talented people for the future,” Lee continued.
“Like an industrialization highway built in the President Park Chung-hee era and an information super highway in the President Kim Dae-jung era, we need to create an energy highway suitable for the era of energy transition and decarbonization,” Lee said with respect to the climate crisis.
“I will take care of state affairs and run the government with young people,” said Yoon Seok-youl, the presidential candidate of the People Power Party.
“We will never use young people for political purposes. In the Yoon Seok-yeol administration, young people will go beyond policy beneficiaries to become partners in the management of state affairs and the implementation of policies.”
Candidate Yoon suggested creating hope for youth. “What young people need is more job opportunities. We will create a dynamic economy and create better jobs and more job opportunities by using freedom, autonomy and creativity as growth engines,” he said.
“Ladders for upward mobility are what young people want. I will introduce a system that facilitates social mobility in all fields such as education, housing, and jobs.”
“I will allow local residents to decide on their regional specialization. We will revise the law and abolish related industrial regulations by region to enable regional specialization,” Yoon continued.
With regard to climate crisis responses, “We will eradicate nuclear phase-out populism policies and use coal phase-out as the basic axis of the nation’s energy conversion,” Yoon said.
“We will designate a special renewable energy zone considering Korea's geographical characteristics to demonstrate various possibilities.”
“Korea’s presidential election should not be a civil war where the left wing and the right wing collide and the progressive group and the conservative group fight with each other but pave the way to a better future for Korea,” said Ahn Cheol-soo, the presidential candidate of the People’s Party.
“Now is high time for Korea to have a president who can deal with fast global changes in science and technology ahead of others.”
“The lives of citizens do not improve despite big economic growth,” said Sim Sang-jung, the presidential candidate of the Justice Party.
“Inequality is to blame in this regard. A dismal outlook on the future of young people is forcing them to give up marrying and having babies and leave their hometowns for the Seoul metropolitan area.”
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