What Is the Truth Behind the Unfunded Pension Liability Debate the Pension Future Forum Has Emphasized? (Part 2)

The United States and Canada, in effect, adopt an infinite time horizon to calculate the size of their unfunded pension liabilities. In the United States, even as the social security system is described as facing severe fiscal instability, the Social Security Administration transmits its annual projections to Congress and the President each year, and, measured over an infinite time horizon, the unfunded liability amounts to 72.8 trillion won, equivalent to 5.2% in contribution-rate terms and 1.6% of GDP. We invite readers to compare this with the estimate produced by Professor Jeon Young-jun, an affiliate of the Pension Future Forum. And yet, having restructured the National Pension so as to pay out higher benefits, not only the political establishment but also a great many self-styled experts have come forward to proclaim that reform has been accomplished—what are we to make of this deplorable state of affairs of ours!