9 out of 10 households received emergency handouts

SEOUL, May 24 (Yonhap) -- Nine out of 10 households have received the emergency relief funds provided by the government as part of efforts to cushion the economic fallout from the new coronavirus, the interior and safety ministry said Sunday.

Over 20 million households had received the funds as of Saturday, accounting for 92.6 percent of the total 21.71 million households subject to benefit from the government's one-off aid program, according to the ministry.

The government began offering the relief funds totaling 14.3 trillion won (US$11.6 billion) to all households earlier this month. Of the total, some 12.68 trillion won have been distributed so far.

The amount of the handouts varies from 400,000 won for single-person households to 1 million won for households with four or more members.

Sales at mom-and-pop shops hit by COVID-19 recently began showing signs of recovery as people started using the money offline.

An index gauging the average sales of small merchants reached 100 in the second week of May, the same as in the previous year, according to industry data.

On Sunday, South Korea reported 25 more cases of the novel virus, raising the nation's total caseload to 11,190. It marked the third day in a row the new virus cases stayed below 30.

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