(Content the Pension Future Forum Finds Hard to Agree With, Kyunghyang Shinmun, Professor Woo Seok-jin) [Economic Straight Talk] We Won't Pay Your Pensions (October 13, 2026)

(The Pension Future Forum finds it hard to accept

the line this column takes.

That is because it is hard to regard it as a column written

with an accurate understanding

of the French pension system

and the state of France's public finances.

Material supporting this view is attached.)

Woo Seok-jin, Professor, Division of Economics, Business and Statistics, Myongji University

French high school students have taken to the streets. Teachers are in short supply, classrooms are cramped, and school facilities are growing old.

At the protests, a sign even appeared reading, "If you treat us like this, we won't pay your pensions either."

Why would students demanding education take issue with pensions? Their slogan carries a question: whose lives do public finances sustain, and whose future do they prepare for?

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman warned in a recent column that France's fiscal path is unsustainable. Krugman's diagnosis is that the fiscal pressure from pension spending is crowding out other spending, such as education.

The Macron government's pension reform met fierce resistance. But one cannot leap straight from this to the conclusion that older people's pensions must be cut to protect young people's future.

A pension is social insurance that prevents poverty in old age. The circumstances of rich and poor older people differ, and young people of the same generation also have different starting lines depending on their parents' wealth.

The role of public finance does not end at simply adjusting each generation's share. Redistribution that narrows the gaps in income and opportunity opened up by the market matters. When public education weakens, well-off families fill the void with private tutoring, but poor families lose the opportunity altogether. Public spending on education, health care and care services eases the burden on households and reduces the extent to which parents' economic power determines their children's future. Public services are real income returned to citizens; they simply are not paid in cash.

This is also why an active fiscal policy is needed now. When private consumption and investment contract, the economy may sink further if the government cuts spending as well. Spending that supplements the incomes of vulnerable groups and supports young people's employment and housing protects livelihoods while underpinning domestic demand. Redistribution is not about dividing what is left after growth is over; it is a process that enables more people to take part in growth.

Who the money is raised from also matters. Even with the same welfare spending, shifting the cost onto low-income groups weakens the redistributive effect. The basic direction of public finance should be for those with more income and assets to bear more, and for that money to be returned to people as education, health care and care services. Overhauling ill-defined tax cuts and collecting taxes according to ability to pay is a path to fiscal consolidation that differs from cutting welfare.

Korea now faces the task of deciding how to use the tax revenue swelling on the back of the semiconductor boom. Last month the government projected that this year's national tax revenue would exceed the supplementary budget estimate by 63.2 trillion won. Higher corporate tax receipts, driven by strong earnings at semiconductor companies and other factors, accounts for more than half of the revenue increase. But the boom at large semiconductor firms does not spread by itself to the livelihoods of small and medium-sized enterprises, the self-employed and young people. Public finance must become the channel that bridges this gap. The point is to link the fruits of the boom to weak domestic demand and employment, and to guarantee opportunities to those left behind in industrial transition.

It would be wrong to pour the excess tax revenue once again solely into support for large companies, or to use it only to lower the national debt ratio. Alongside necessary debt management, it should be used to improve the lives of citizens left out of the boom. Priority investment should go to young people's first jobs and vocational training, affordable housing, and regional public health care and care services. Retraining and income security are also needed for workers who must move to new jobs because of the AI transition. Turning the success of semiconductors into opportunities for the majority of citizens is the responsibility of an active fiscal policy.

Of course, the semiconductor cycle cannot stay good forever. Temporary excess revenue must not be counted as if it will come in every year. Part of it should be set aside for a downturn, and a stable revenue base should be secured for ongoing spending. Still, uncertainty cannot be a reason to postpone even necessary investment. Verifying the results of spending and managing resources responsibly must go hand in hand with using public finance actively.

We have experienced how, when the role of public finance shrank because of revenue shortfalls, growth lost its vigor and people's lives became harder. Chasing the single number of the national debt ratio cannot protect the economy or people's livelihoods. If spending cuts stall growth as well, revenue weakens and improving the debt ratio may become harder. What we leave to future generations is not only debt, but also the opportunity to be educated, the capacity to work, and a social safety net.

The answer to the French students' slogan does not lie in pitting young people against older people. It lies in raising resources where there is capacity to pay and investing in lives and futures in more urgent need. The success of public finance should be judged not only by how much debt has been reduced, but by how evenly the fruits of growth have been shared and how much people's lives have improved.

Woo Seok-jin, Professor, Division of Economics, Business and Statistics, Myongji University

https://n.news.naver.com/article/032/0003476054?sid=110