(SBS TV Report, August 16, 2018) [Joo Young-jin's News Briefing] Running Dry Sooner Than Expected? — Misunderstandings and Truths About the Much-Debated National Pension (Posted September 5, 2026)

(This is the content of a live debate

between Professor Kim Yeon-myeong of Chung-Ang University

and Yun Suk-myung, Research Fellow at the

Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA),

on the National Pension overhaul plan,

held one day before a public hearing that reflected

the results of the fourth National Pension

financial projection in 2018.

Watching it comes with the inconvenience

of having to sit through an advertisement,

but we are grateful to SBS for having

preserved it in this way

as a historical record.)

Professor Kim Yeon-myeong takes the position that, because the purpose of introducing a pension scheme is to sustain a stable life in old age, the scheme must be as faithful as possible to that purpose. He holds this all the more firmly because, even in a situation where the older population is expected to exceed 40% over the long term, the National Pension's expenditure as a share of GDP is projected at around 7%.

(Note:

this claim by Professor Kim Yeon-myeong —

that pension expenditure as a share of GDP

will stand at around 7% —

is almost identical to what the Public Pension Strengthening People’s Action

has long argued.

This claim of Professor Kim Yeon-myeong's

has been shown to be at odds with the facts

by the 2023 fifth National Pension financial projection

and by the materials that Committee Member Yun Suk-myung

presented to the advisory committee of the National Assembly Special Committee on Pension Reform

in both the 21st and the 22nd National Assemblies.

In particular, according to the materials that

Committee Member Yun Suk-myung presented

at the 10th meeting of the advisory committee in the 22nd National Assembly,

Korea's public pension expenditure

as a share of GDP is estimated

to be 15% or more —

more than double the 7%

that Professor Kim Yeon-myeong claims.

It should be noted that this figure was calculated

using materials officially submitted

by the Lee Jae-myung administration.)

Committee Member Yun Suk-myung, by contrast, emphasizes that the reason the pension reform question is being raised at all lies in the worsening demographic structure.

Pointing out that, at the time of the debate, the Year of the Dog cohort born in the single year of 1958 numbered about 1 million people, whereas at the time of the 2018 broadcast the number of newborns was estimated at 300,000 to 350,000, he argues that pension reform is unavoidable if intergenerational equity is to be secured.

(About three months later,

on November 9, 2018,

Professor Kim Yeon-myeong was appointed

Senior Secretary to the President for Social Welfare

in the Moon Jae-in administration.)

[Joo Young-jin's News Briefing] Running Dry Sooner Than Expected? —

Misunderstandings and Truths About the Much-Debated National Pension

(Posted August 16, 2018, 4:19 p.m.; Revised August 16, 2018)

Source: SBS News
Original link: https://news.sbs.co.kr/news/endPage.do?news_id=N1004892658&plink=COPYPASTE&cooper=SBSNEWSMOBEND