"Are Parents Raiding Their Children's Piggy Banks?" Young Legislators from Both Ruling and Opposition Parties Vote en Masse Against the Bill [Field Footage] (March 21, 2025)

Pension Reform Bill Tabled: 'Contribution Rate 13% · Income Replacement Rate 43%'

[Cheon Ha-ram / Reform Party Member of the National Assembly]
"After no less than 18 years, the two major parties have reached agreement on parametric adjustments to the National Pension. The agreement reached today is itself worthy of acknowledgment.
However, today's reform proposal—which calls for higher contributions in exchange for higher benefits—amounts to nothing more than parents raiding their children's piggy banks. The fact that two parents have reached an agreement does not justify plundering the children's savings. The Honorable Deputy Speaker Joo Ho-young, who served as chair of the Special Committee on Pension Reform in the 21st National Assembly, stated that regardless of whether the income replacement rate is set at 43% or 44%, a pension reform without an automatic adjustment mechanism is mere window dressing—a short-sighted half-measure—and that those who collect their pensions and leave are essentially taking the money and running, while from the perspective of the younger generation it constitutes outright plunder.
According to the fifth financial projection of the National Pension conducted in 2023, fiscal stability is difficult to achieve even if the income replacement rate is maintained at its current level and the contribution rate is raised to 17%. Under a scenario of a 43% income replacement rate and a 13% contribution rate, securing long-term sustainability is simply impossible. The inevitable result is that an unmanageable burden will be shifted onto future generations.
My son is 10 years old this year by Korean reckoning—a third-grade elementary school student. Did anyone ask the generation my son belongs to for their opinion? Future generations are not capable of supporting the existing older generation. In 1970, there were 1 million live births; in 1986, the year I was born, there were 630,000. By 2024, the number of births had fallen to only 240,000.
In a Korea of ultra-low fertility and hyper-aging—a condition created by the current older generation—future generations will struggle to support even themselves. Unless the preceding generation defuses at least a minimum of the bomb they have set, the generation that follows will, quite literally, be blown apart.

Yet today's agreed-upon proposal has deferred even the discussion of an automatic adjustment mechanism, which is essential to preventing the National Pension from accumulating massive unfunded liabilities. Given that the Democratic Party has been in practice opposed to an automatic adjustment mechanism out of concern over reductions in benefits for the current older generation, it is difficult to be confident that such a mechanism will be introduced within the special committee.

Opposition to an automatic adjustment mechanism is itself proof that the current reform proposal is unsustainable. I can in no way agree to today's parametric adjustment—which merely increases contributions and benefits—without any guarantee of the restructuring that must necessarily precede it, without any commitment to structural reform.

Furthermore, today's parametric adjustment is in itself a change for the worse for our younger and future generations—more regressive even than the original government proposal.

The original government proposal was designed to prevent an excessive burden on the younger generation: those in their 50s would see the contribution rate rise by 1 percentage point per year, those in their 40s by 0.5 percentage points per year, those in their 30s by 0.33 percentage points per year, and those in their 20s by 0.25 percentage points per year. This was intended to reflect the reality that younger cohorts face longer contribution periods and therefore bear a heavier cumulative burden. The agreed-upon proposal, however, unifies the increase for all generations at 0.5 percentage points per year over eight years. Should there not be at least a minimum of conscience shown toward our younger and future generations?"

Pension Reform Bill Passes: 193 in Favor, 40 Opposed, 44 Abstentions

Young legislators from both ruling and opposition parties—including Kim Jae-seop, Woo Jae-jun, Lee So-young, Jeon Yong-gi, Lee Jun-seok, and Yong Hye-in—vote en masse against the bill

※ Related article: Pension Reform Bill That 'Increases Both Contributions and Benefits' Enacted after 18 Years — "Plunder of Future Generations"
https://imnews.imbc.com/replay/2025/nwdesk/article/6698082_36799.html