(Pension Future Forum Commentary) On the Issue of Paying the Basic Pension to Government Employees Pension Stakeholders (2026.8.20.)

The Pension Future Forum has already stated its position on the exclusion of members and entitled beneficiaries of special occupational pensions, such as the Government Employees Pension, from eligibility for the Basic Pension.

On the recent tendency to form public opinion in one direction — that the Basic Pension should also be paid to members of special occupational pensions such as the Government Employees Pension —

the Pension Future Forum expresses deep concern.

There have been reasons and grounds for excluding the stakeholders of special occupational pensions such as the Government Employees Pension from Basic Pension eligibility.

Unlike the National Pension, whose lump-sum payment was abolished by the amendment of December 1998,

special occupational pensions such as the Government Employees Pension still retain the lump-sum payment system,

and in particular the method of splitting the total pension payment

into a lump sum and a pension, paid separately, also remains in force.

Basic Pension beneficiaries are selected on the basis of recognized income.

To take an extreme example, there are Government Employees Pension stakeholders who took the entire amount as a lump sum instead of a pension and then, for various reasons, fell into poverty —

a phenomenon that appears frequently, in particular, among the later-life elderly aged 80 and over.

For this reason,

at the fourth National Pension Financial Estimation Committee in 2018

and the fifth National Pension Financial Estimation Committee in 2023,

although this item was placed on the agenda,

it was not adopted.

To ask that the conditions for Basic Pension payment be made identical to those for National Pension members while leaving the pension payment method, which differs from that of the National Pension, exactly as it is —

and for the civil service community, of all communities, which has taken part

or is taking part in running the state,

to be the first to demand it —

the present situation is hard to understand.

Before demanding that the Basic Pension be paid to stakeholders of special occupational pensions such as the Government Employees Pension,

an amendment of the law unifying the pension payment method must come first —

that is why the Pension Future Forum stresses the point again and again.

Furthermore,

to the recommendation in the 2022 OECD report

that Korea should operate its public pensions in integrated form,

there should also be

a responsible answer.

(An article about a forum calling for the Basic Pension to be paid to civil servants as well is attached.)

https://m.lawissue.co.kr/view.php?ud=2026081915035724079a8c8bf58f_12