South Korea tries to boost the economy by hiking the minimum wage

A LOT has changed since Jeon Tae-il killed himself. In 1970, when the 22-year-old South Korean set himself alight to protest about poor working conditions, his country received millions of dollars of foreign aid. Now it is the world’s 11th-biggest economy. The statue that commemorates him in the capital, Seoul, is dwarfed by skyscrapers. Passers-by play games on their smartphones. Yet his memory is often invoked by activists and politicians who argue that ordinary workers do not get their fair share of the national pot of kimchi. “He was a great man,” says a market trader, having a cigarette break next to the memorial. “Things have improved a lot but our wages are still poor.”