Legislative inaction is hurting people and companies in need of help. Due to lawmakers’ failure to act, jobless people cannot receive larger unemployment benefits; struggling households have to pay higher interest rates on loans from credit businesses; and distressed companies face difficulty in getting debt relief from their creditor banks.

Last year, the government proposed a graduated scheme for unemployment benefits starting this year. It planned to allow beneficiaries of employment insurance to collect up to 50,000 won ($42) a day in benefits, about 7,000 won higher than the uniform rate of 43,416 won.

Had the proposal been approved by legislators, the average level of unemployment benefits paid to beneficiaries would have increased from 4.96 million won per person last year to 6.43 million won this year.

But lawmakers failed to act on the proposal amid a standoff between the ruling and main opposition parties over the five labor reform bills submitted by the government.

The two parties always say they put the interests of people in need before anything else. But their inaction on the unemployment benefit bill provided the latest example of how they have failed them.

Lawmakers’ neglect of their legislative duty has also left people who rely on credit without protection from predatory lending practices. Last year, they agreed to lower the interest rate cap on lenders from 35.9 percent to 27.9 percent.

But they failed to reauthorize the law on the credit business, letting the sunset provision on interest rate limitations expire automatically at the year-end.

Now that credit companies are not constrained by any interest rate cap, they can charge sky-high interest rates on loans to their customers -- usually people with low credit ratings who cannot access low-cost bank loans.

The number of people who took out loans from credit companies amounted to 2.6 million as of June 2015. Had the interest rate cap been lowered as planned, the interest burden of these people could have been alleviated by 500 billion won a year.

Another sunset law that lawmakers have failed to renew is the Corporate Restructuring Promotion Act. The expiration of this law threatens to disrupt the ongoing efforts to turn around troubled companies.

The law on corporate restructuring provided the legal basis for creditor banks to enforce their debt-workout programs despite dissent from some of the involved financial institutions. But now creditor banks do not have the power to force dissenting lenders to follow their lead.

To prevent disruptions in ongoing restructuring processes, financial authorities and creditor banks are pushing for a voluntary agreement involving all domestic financial institutions. But even if such an agreement is reached, it lacks legally binding force.

Corporate restructuring should be expedited as the economy cannot move forward quickly without rehabilitating distressed but viable companies and weeding out nonviable ones.

Now, lawmakers from the ruling and main opposition parties should set aside partisan interests and endeavor to pass the bills that have a direct effect on people and companies in need of assistance. They still have time to do their job as the ongoing extraordinary parliamentary session ends on Jan. 8.