The government has begun to dole out four-point-one trillion won in emergency cash payouts to small business owners and self-employed people hit hard by the third wave of COVID-19. 

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups said Tuesday that it paid a total of one-point-four trillion won to a little over one million people who applied on Monday, the first day of applications. This means each person received between one and three million won. The number of people who received the subsidies on Monday account for 36-and-a-half percent of nearly two-point-eight million people eligible for the emergency funds.  

On the second day Tuesday, the government sent out text messages to some one-point-three million small business owners eligible for the cash subsidies, telling them that they have been chosen for the program. 

SMEs and Startups Minister Park Young-sun said the government sent out text messages from 6 a.m. on Tuesday, two hours earlier than Monday. She noted that those who apply for the funds can get them within three hours of submitting their application.