(Dong-A Ilbo Report on the Pension Future Forum, Internet Edition) Basic Pension Keeps Only ‘More for the Lower’ Half, Not ‘More for the Lower, Less for the Upper’…Low-Income Recipients to Get 30,000 Won More (2026.09.01.)

Basic Pension Payment Standard Keeps ‘Bottom 70% by Income’
Plan to Change to 90% of Standard Median Income Retreats

The government has decided to keep the current standard of paying the Basic Pension to older people in the ‘bottom 70% by income’ unchanged next year as well.

Instead, low-income older people in the bottom 30% by income will be paid 380,000 won a month, an increase of 30,000 won from this year.

This is a major retreat from the original plan to overhaul the Basic Pension eligibility standard to ‘standard median income’ and gradually reduce higher-income beneficiaries in a ‘more for the lower, less for the upper (下厚上薄)’ approach.

Critics say that with its approval rating having fallen into the 30% range, the government—mindful of public backlash—has effectively let Basic Pension reform fall through, while fiscal spending has instead increased further.

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The government had originally prepared an overhaul plan under which, starting next year, Basic Pension eligibility would change to ‘standard median income of 90% or below,’ with this threshold lowered every year so that higher-income older people would naturally drop out of the beneficiary pool.

But with the plan scrapped at the last minute, Basic Pension fiscal spending is feared to accelerate.

If the current system is maintained, the Basic Pension budget is estimated to surge to 66.6 trillion won by 2050. The number of Basic Pension beneficiaries is also projected to grow from 7.29 million last month to 13.3 million in 2050.

There are also criticisms that even with this overhaul, which preserves only the ‘more for the lower’ half, additional support for low-income groups is insufficient, so the effect of improving elderly poverty will be weak. Oh Gun-ho, co-chair of Welfare State I Make, said, “Taking price increases into account, the actual increase in money is not large,” adding, “The goal of the overhaul—improving elderly poverty—has gone missing.”

The Pension Future Forum’s Future Generations Network, composed of members of the younger generation, pointed out in a statement released the same day that “they have abandoned the structural reform needed to properly help poor older people, while passing on only the cost to the next generation.”

The government’s policy is to leave discussion of the Basic Pension overhaul after 2028 to the National Assembly. Son Ho-jun, Director General for Pension Policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare,

said, “There needs to be further social discussion regarding the multi-pillar pension system, including the National Pension.”

Yoon Seok-myung, Research Fellow Emeritus at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA), pointed out, “As a result of being mindful of its approval rating, the government carried out a Basic Pension overhaul that, in trying to remove a growth, ended up attaching an even bigger one.”

https://n.news.naver.com/article/020/0003744981?sid=102