As Citizens Choose the 'Pay More, Receive More' Plan, the Pension Future Forum Says: “The Survey Wording Was Distorted, Key Information Was Missing” (April 24, 2024)

In connection with the citizen representatives' choice of the 'pay more, receive more' National Pension reform plan, some experts have begun to question the overall fairness and validity of the Public Deliberation Committee's activities.

They also argued that key information, such as the scale of the deficit, was missing from the material the representatives studied, and that a revote should be held after informing them of it.

The Pension Future Forum, which includes Yoon Seok-myung, Research Fellow Emeritus at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (former President of the Korean Pension Association), among its participants, released a position statement to this effect on the 24th.

It also said “we respect the citizen representatives' decision,” while arguing that there are doubts about the fairness and validity of the Public Deliberation Committee's activities. First, it said that the wording of the survey for Proposal 1 contained expressions that distorted the facts.

The Forum said, “the plan, which raises the income replacement rate by another 10 percentage points while raising the contribution rate by only 4 percentage points, is described as being 'for the sake of sustainability,'” and

“even keeping the income replacement rate at 40% and raising the contribution rate by 6 percentage points would fail to achieve fiscal stability — that is the core finding of the 2023 fifth National Pension financial projection,” it criticized.

(Excerpt omitted)

It also argued that the study material itself was biased.

The income-security plan that was ultimately chosen would increase the cumulative deficit by roughly 2,700 trillion won compared with the fiscal-stability plan, but this information was not provided.

The Forum said, “information on the National Pension's fiscal deficit that the state could end up bearing was also missing — the National Assembly Budget Office's announcement that, once the fund is depleted, the national debt ratio would reach 192.6% of GDP (gross domestic product) by 2070, was likewise not provided to the citizen representatives,” and

“information on the lifetime contribution rate burden by generation was also missing,” it said.

It also argued that all the material the citizen representatives studied should be disclosed, and that the equity, fairness, and accuracy of the material provided should be verified.

The Forum said, “at this point in time, someone must without fail represent the position and interests of future generations — specifically, those aged 20 and under and generations yet to be born,” and

also said, “please disclose what institutional mechanism has been put in place [for this].”

“after a thorough review of how the Public Deliberation Committee's activities were conducted, a new, broader, and unbiased forum for discussion must be established,” it said.

https://n.news.naver.com/article/025/0003356192?sid=102