The Situation Just Before Passage of the National Pension Act Amendment, March 2025 (2)

(In early 2025,

at that point when debate over the direction of pension reform was at its most intense,

the ‘income replacement rate 44%–contribution rate 13%’ combination is a good solution — that was the argument of

Professor Seok Jae-eun’s column in the Munhwa Ilbo.

At the time, the Pension Future Forum held the position that an automatic adjustment mechanism should be added to the ‘income replacement rate 40%–contribution rate 13% combination,’ and held press conferences several times on this basis at the National Assembly Press Center and elsewhere.

For reference, in the case of a 44% income replacement rate rather than 40%,

the numerical difference is only 4 percentage points, but

as time passes, the negative effects that will emerge are beyond imagination!

This is because it carries the enormous implication that the cumulative deficit after 70 years will differ by as much as roughly 4,000 trillion won.)

Above all, Korea has entered a super-aged society at a speed and to a degree unprecedented in the world, without ever having adopted the globally standard pension-reform grammar of aligning what is paid in with what is paid out.

Halting reform over a small 2 percentage-point difference in the income replacement rate is difficult to justify.

Both reform proposals are far better choices than deferring the matter to the 22nd National Assembly. A 13% contribution rate and a 44% income replacement rate, each conceded by 1 percentage point, is also a good solution.

Only by succeeding with this parametric reform can structural reform also be pursued.

Deferring pension reform to the 22nd National Assembly — where, with a presidential election ahead, it is highly likely to be pushed down the list of priorities — amounts to an abdication of historical responsibility.

https://n.news.naver.com/article/021/0002636334?sid=110