Minutes of the 1st Meeting of the Advisory Committee to the 22nd National Assembly Special Committee on Pension Reform (Held November 14, 2025)

Committee Member Yoon Seok-myung 37:15 They said the cumulative deficit and the unfunded liability were concepts only Yoon Seok-myung uses, so the committee couldn’t adopt them — but guess what! After the committee ended, when the National Assembly special committee members discussed it, they used the cumulative-deficit concept, and as for the unfunded liability too, the Ministry of Health and Welfare reported it to National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo at the end of the 21st National Assembly — 1,700 trillion won. And more recently the National Assembly Budget Office put out an unfunded-liability figure of 1,820 trillion won. So since it’s already used officially, this is not a concept only Yoon Seok-myung uses. If you look at the cumulative deficit here and there — look at page 8! If we simply leave this system as it is, the cumulative deficit comes to about 21,600-odd trillion won! Just under 22,000 trillion won. But what this deterioration actually amounts to is this: on top of that 21,600 trillion won, another 179 trillion won gets added — if we extend the mandatory contribution age by five more years! Is this reform? Didn’t I say we have to look at the indicators? For anyone who can still call this reform, I’ve written that down here too.

Committee Member Yoon Seok-myung 38:18 Raise your hand and ask me questions after I’m done speaking! I’m ready to debate all night! But why do we all think of this as reform? It’s because politicians and the media report it all as reform, so we come to think of it as reform. So, in my experience, this can’t go on any longer. So we need to let the press and the public know in real time, the moment we’re in this meeting. To do that, let’s livestream our meetings on YouTube! And it looks like we’re recording this right now.

Committee Member Yoon Seok-myung 39:08 Let’s make a detailed meeting record from the recording, and even if it isn’t perfectly accurate at first, right after the meeting ends let’s release it to the advisory committee members and the press within a day. That’s how I’d like to push this forward. And here’s another important thing — at some point during the 21st National Assembly, this got corrupted. Why do only the two co-chairs occasionally meet with the National Assembly Special Committee on Pension Reform members?

(Excerpt omitted)

Committee Member Yoon Seok-myung 40:56 We’re short on time, so next — if you look at page 1 (the main body, not the summary) — you can read the detailed content yourselves, but on page 1, I really want to emphasize the fatal flaws in the discussion process before the National Pension Act amendment. A great many National Assembly members, including groups like the Public Pension Strengthening People’s Action, staged a huge number of picket protests in front of the National Assembly Main Building. They pressured the press enormously. Back then, these people were saying — what were they saying? — that the great citizen representatives had made their decision, the National Pension’s income replacement rate, they decided, should be raised to 50%!

My point about that is on page 1. This case, too, amounts to a fraud perpetrated on the entire public. What I mean is — when I pointed this out live on NATV’s (National Assembly TV) policy debate program hosted by Jung Kwan-yong, and when the person who said it wasn’t true — Representative Yoo Kyung-joon, who was the ruling-party secretary of the National Assembly Special Committee on Pension Reform in the 21st National Assembly — pointed it out, he said the material didn’t seem important! (The explanatory material on screen won’t advance properly) No, this is content that’s right there on page 1! He said something like ‘it was deleted’ — but in the end, that amounts to lying on live television.

Committee Member Yoon Seok-myung 41:55 What this content is, is two things. One is that, in the process of selecting the 500 citizen representatives, more people who favored paying larger pensions were confirmed (included) from the 10,000-person pool that the 500 were drawn from. This has already come to light. The second is that the Ministry of Health and Welfare — which is sitting right here observing this meeting — provided an extremely important piece of material. It said that if the income replacement rate is raised to 50% and the contribution rate is raised to 13%, then the PAYG cost rate would rise to as much as 43.2%. The Ministry submitted that content as study material for the Public Deliberation Committee’s citizen representatives, but the two co-chairs got involved and deleted it, calling it meaningless, and put the material together that way! In the words of Representative Kim Se-yeon, a three-term lawmaker who served as Chair of the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee, this is "conduct that comes close to the level of a crime."

These aren’t my words! Saying it’s "conduct that comes close to the level of a crime" isn’t something I’m saying! Those are the words of someone who knows the law well.

Committee Member Yoon Seok-myung 42:49 And after all that, every media outlet and every group holding power kept saying this was the decision of the great citizenry, telling us every time to follow the will of the people! Both the process by which it was decided and the groups asserting it — I can’t see it as anything but having an enormous moral problem. That very table — the one now under dispute — the one showing on the screen right now — that’s what they deleted! This is the one showing it rising to as much as 43.2%. I mean, if young people knew about this, would they ever agree to it? We’re really pressed for time! Now, in my case, I’m the one giving the presentation, and worrying that I might be misleading you, I asked Google to make sure I was being objective. Everyone’s caught up in the AI craze with Google AI these days, right? I’ve asked AI a lot about the Korean composite stock index too, and when I asked Google, it turns out my position matches exactly what the younger generation thinks. So, since (the presentation material) is just too packed right now! Let’s watch our video for just one minute before moving on! Could you play it for just a minute? (Pointing to the screen capture of the video that says, "Just Because We’re Staying Quiet, Do You Think We’re Pushovers? ) — this one!

Committee Member Yoon Seok-myung 43:41 These aren’t my words — this is the younger generation’s position!