(Dong-A Ilbo — Pension Future Forum Coverage, Print Edition) Next Year's Basic Pension Eligibility Kept Without Reduction — the Bottom 30% to Get 30,000 Won More (September 2, 2026)

Eligibility standard stays at the "bottom 70% by income"
"More for the lower, less for the upper" — "more for the lower" only, without "less for the upper"
Low-income households: the couples' reduction narrowed
Pension budget up 600 billion won from this year

The Pension Future Forum’s Future Generations Network, made up of members of the younger generation, issued a statement the same day pointing out that “the government has abandoned the structural reform needed to help poor older people properly, while passing on nothing but 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 of Pension Policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said, “There needs to be further social discussion of 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, “the government, out of concern for its approval rating, carried out a Basic Pension overhaul that, like trying to remove a wart only to grow a bigger one, made things worse rather than better.”

https://n.news.naver.com/article/020/0003745104?sid=102