President Lee Jae-myung approved the appointment of Kim Ji-yong as head of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency on the 15th, filling the agency's leadership vacancy two weeks after its launch. Moving quickly to install Kim despite objections from parts of the broader ruling bloc is seen as an effort to help the new agency settle in. At the same time, Lee called for an all-of-government response to a recent string of violent crimes — a step read as aimed at easing concerns about gaps in public safety amid the overhaul of the criminal justice system and at restoring momentum in state affairs.
A day before marking 500 days in office, Lee also moved to refresh his governing agenda around two themes: easing public anxiety over crime and reviving livelihoods. He called for the formation of a joint government response body and stressed a sweeping expansion of frontline personnel, organization and equipment. The Presidential Office immediately convened an emergency joint meeting of relevant ministries, chaired by Policy Chief Ha Joon-kyung, to begin work on short- and long-term measures, including securing frontline response capacity and tightening the management of offenders. The instruction is read as a move to allay public unease, coming as violent crimes mounted at a time when settling in newly created investigative agencies and establishing cooperation among them had emerged as challenges in the restructuring of the criminal justice system.
Lee also presented livelihood recovery — centered on three major social policies covering housing, jobs and finance — as a core task of his administration. "Despite strong readings in key indicators, the pace of livelihood recovery that the public hopes for is slow," he said. While noting that per capita national income could top $40,000 this year, he stressed that "economic performance must carry through to the lives of individual citizens." He added that his government "will walk firmly down the path of improving livelihoods, pursuing pragmatic reform and achieving inclusive unity, without yielding to any outside pressure or resistance."
On specific social policies, the plan is to expand housing supply tailored to actual needs across different stages of life, swiftly push a "National Jobs Project" spanning the private and public sectors, and ease the financial burden on vulnerable groups through policy funding and debt restructuring. Lim Kwang-hyun, the new presidential chief of staff, attended the senior secretaries' meeting for the first time that day and pledged to "devote every effort to delivering results on livelihoods."
Meanwhile, Kang Hoon-sik, the former presidential chief of staff, wrote a farewell message after his resignation was accepted, saying: "As head of the secretariat, I allowed the situation to reach the point where the president had to apologize. The fault is entirely mine." He added that he "spent a sleepless weekend and had no choice but to offer the president my resignation."