Joo Jin-woo of the People Power Party said a cooperative where the wife and two children of Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won work received funding from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and Kim's family took home salaries amounting to hundreds of millions of won.
Joo held a news conference at the National Assembly press room on the 6th and said, "The Kim family's 'tax siphoning' scheme has long crossed the line," raising these allegations.
According to Joo, Kim's wife and two children work at the Korea Child Development Social Cooperative. Kim's wife serves as the head of a family center run by the cooperative. The eldest son reportedly started in May 2024, and the younger daughter in Aug. of the same year.
When the cooperative was established in Yongin, Gyeonggi, it received zero won in government subsidies. After Kim was elected to the National Assembly from Suwon, Gyeonggi, the cooperative also transferred to Suwon and, three months later, was designated as a provider of services for people with developmental disabilities, generating government voucher revenue, Joo said.
The cooperative's government voucher revenue consists of 70% from national funds via the Ministry of Health and Welfare, 25.5% from Suwon city funds, and 4.% from Gyeonggi provincial funds. The cooperative's government voucher revenue was ▲70 million won in 2022 ▲237 million won in 2023 ▲280 million won in 2024 ▲290 million won in 2025, totaling about 877 million won. During this period, the salaries received by Kim's family amounted to about 330 million won, which is 38% of the government voucher revenue.
Joo also raised questions about how the two children came to work at the cooperative. Joo said, "Kim's side explained that the eldest son handled occupational therapy and special education, but the job title in the public hiring notice was 'human resources manager,'" adding, "Kim's spouse and eldest son even interviewed and then additionally hired the younger daughter, an absurd situation."
He added, "Social cooperatives in the style of Park Won-soon have been criticized for plugging straws into taxpayers' money, and the reality has been revealed through this family-type cooperative case of Kim Seung-won," calling it "a 'family income cooperative' where the spouse and two children were hired one after another and pocketed 330 million won in salaries."