There's Yet Another Unfair Basic Pension Cut — 840,000 People Whose National Pension Exceeds 530,000 Won Sigh in Frustration [Shin Sung-sik's Let's Go 9988] (2026.04.01.)

(The Basic Pension needs to be overhauled on a large scale to match reality. Among countries where the National Pension operates as the central pillar of the system, there are almost none that, citing every possible reason, run a quasi-universal Basic Pension the way Korea does.

Canada, which is often cited as an example, introduced its Basic Pension first and only later introduced the CPP, an earnings-related pension, so

in terms of the path dependency commonly discussed in welfare studies, it is an entirely different kind of country from ours, which introduced the National Pension first.

Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland are countries where the Basic Pension is nearly the only public pension, and a substantial portion of old-age income relies on the retirement pension, which is funded by employers.

Arguments calling for expanding Basic Pension eligibility even to civil servants, instead of an approach that narrows the pool of eligible recipients,

Korea's public pension system should be properly understood in terms of its operating realities before any such statements are made.

1. First, as recommended by the OECD Secretariat, structural reform must come first, so that the public pension is operated on an integrated basis, as in most OECD countries that already run a Common pension.

2. Beyond the lump-sum payout that the National Pension abolished through the 1998 legal amendment, the current Government Employees Pension regulation — which allows a split payout of a lump sum and a pension — must be changed first.

Keeping the lump-sum payout channel open while demanding to be included as a Basic Pension recipient is, quite literally,

nonsense itself!)

 

The Basic Pension carries yet another problem: the National Pension–linked reduction, the reduction for basic-livelihood recipients, and the exclusion of Government Employees, Military Personnel, and Private School Teachers pension recipients and their spouses, among others.

If the monthly National Pension benefit exceeds 524,600 won, the Basic Pension is reduced by up to 50%. The longer a person's National Pension enrollment period, the more it is cut.

However, it has been pointed out that this does not make sense, since the National Pension is something one pays contributions into and receives, while the Basic Pension is funded from national finances — the two are different in nature, yet they are linked together for the reduction.

According to data from the office of Representative Kim Seon-min of the Rebuilding Korea Party, last year roughly 840,000 people had their benefits cut by 96,000 won per person per month (about 80.4 billion won per month in total).

Because of this, some people choose to receive a reduced National Pension in order to avoid the Basic Pension cut. Mr. Son (62) applied for early old-age pension benefits to reduce his Basic Pension cut. Because he received it five years earlier than the regular age, at 57, it was cut by 30%. He said, “The more National Pension you receive, the more your Basic Pension gets cut.” This is a case that appears in the report 'A Study on Improving the Early Old-Age Pension' (2022).

Representative Kim Seon-min has submitted to the National Assembly a bill that would abolish the National Pension–linked reduction and pay the Basic Pension to Government Employees, Military Personnel, and Private School Teachers pension recipients as well.

Even without abolishing the linked reduction altogether, there is a need to protect low-income older people by raising the reduction threshold or lowering the maximum reduction rate (50%). The problem is money. One option is to narrow the pool eligible for the Basic Pension and reduce the pension amounts of the middle class to fund it.

It seems desirable to gather all the Basic Pension–related issues together and overhaul the system as a whole.

https://n.news.naver.com/article/025/0003513134?sid=110