(Pension Future Forum Commentary) Reform of the Government Employees Pension and the Private School Teachers Pension Must Be Hastened (Posted September 13, 2026)

Of late, public interest in the pension system

and the various welfare programs our country operates

has been rising.

Yet the issues that attract public interest

seem to have been decided in advance.

That is because the issues that truly matter

are ones no one is willing to mention.

Because there was not enough to pay pensions

to the 630,000 Government Employees Pension beneficiaries,

the nation's tax money injected last year alone

came to 10 trillion won.

Even so, the stakeholders say the amount is not much and try to brush it aside as no great matter.

From the fiscal authorities, the Ministry of Planning and Budget and the like, which take issue with the growth of mandatory expenditures within the state's fiscal expenditure,

we have never once heard a word to the effect that the special occupational pension schemes, such as the Government Employees Pension, must be reformed.

Since 2015 the Government Employees Pension

has kept even its financial projection reports unpublished,

and even when members of the National Assembly request data, it cites this reason and that, strips out the essential content, and supplies nothing but chaff.

It is true that the Basic Pension is a problem.

It must be fixed properly, and at once.

And yet, while over the Basic Pension, which is paid to some 7 million people

and comes to 25 trillion won in all,

there is all this uproar, the point — the state, as the employer of civil servants, bears contributions of 9%

and a retirement allowance set at 39% of the private-sector level,

on top of which,

for the 630,000 civil-servant beneficiaries

a single year's pensions cannot be paid in full, so that

the tax-funded

deficit subsidy alone reaches 10 trillion won —

that the Government Employees Pension system needs to be overhauled

is one that neither the president who personally oversees every last affair of state

nor the fiscal authorities responsible for the nation's coffers,

nor anyone else at all,

has so much as mentioned.

This is a textbook case

of an approach that is strong against the weak and weak against the strong.

Of late, as the problems of the various

social security schemes we operate have come to light,

public discontent has been mounting over what the experts in the relevant fields have been doing all this time.

Up until 2010, critical and neutral experts did at least take part as members of the financial projection committees for the Government Employees Pension and the Private School Teachers Pension,

but, thoroughly excluding the experts who will speak their minds — a tiny few to begin with —

the two schemes form the Financial Estimation Committee to suit their own taste, apply quite optimistic assumptions

in carrying out the financial projection, and then

do not make even its results public.

And there is another bomb lying in wait.

It is the scheme for linking contribution periods across the public pension schemes.

Even experts in the relevant field know little about it.

Because of the contribution-period linkage scheme,

a civil servant who retires early can enroll in the National Pension

and draw pensions from both schemes

at the same time — that path

lies open.

The trouble is that even this contribution-period linkage scheme

is being operated in the way most advantageous of all

for contributors to the Government Employees Pension and the Private School Teachers Pension.

The reason the Pension Future Forum

is raising this issue today is that

the state of fiscal instability that we know only superficially,

that of the Government Employees Pension and the Private School Teachers Pension,

is, because of the scheme

for linking contribution periods

across the public pension schemes,

in reality far

more serious.

Just as the fiscal instability of the Government Employees Pension,

introduced in 1960, came to the surface

in earnest only after 2000,

the additional fiscal instability caused by the contribution-period linkage scheme

in the Government Employees Pension, the Private School Teachers Pension, and the Military Pension

is a problem that could,

for example,

from 2050 onward

begin to appear in earnest.

Owing to the introduction of the linkage scheme,

already unsustainable,

the Private School Teachers Pension will take

the heaviest blow of all.

Even though this is the situation we are in,

there is not a single expert or group

that raises the issue.

They are hushing it up and passing the bomb around,

and nothing more!

https://n.news.naver.com/article/119/0003115482?sid=101