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Calculations have come out that if the national pension is operated as it is now, the fund will be completely depleted by 2055.

The Private Advisory Committee of the Special Committee on Pensions of the National Assembly held an end-of-the-week discussion on this issue, but could not even come up with a draft.



Reporter Shin Yong-shik summarized what kind of discussion was going on and what the government's position was like.



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Private advisory committee members could not come to any conclusion in the two-day discussion from last Friday.



There was a big difference of opinion on the 'income replacement rate', which shows how much of the average income during the period of pension subscription can be received as a pension after retirement.



The higher the income replacement rate, the larger the insurance premium increase.



At the beginning of the meeting, there was a conflict between the plan to maintain the income replacement rate at 40% and raise the insurance premium rate to 15% to stabilize the pension finances, and the plan to raise the insurance premium rate to around 15% but expand the income replacement rate to 50%.



Then, an opinion to compromise the income replacement rate to 45% and a proposal to lower the income replacement rate to 30% and raise the insurance premium to only 12% for financial stability were added.



The important thing is that all four of these methods raise the insurance premium rate by more than 3%p from the current 9%.



It is said that an increase in the insurance premium rate is inevitable in order to maintain the national pension, but the Ministry of Health and Welfare drew a line saying that it was not within the government's plan.



[Cho Kyu-hong/Minister of Health and Welfare: There are reports in some media that the national pension insurance premium rate will be raised, so I would like to explain the government's position in this regard.

This is not a government bill.]



Originally scheduled to submit a draft reform bill to the National Assembly tomorrow (31st), the private advisory committee decided to continue discussions until next month.



[Kim Yong-ha/Pension Special Committee Private Advisory Committee Chairman: I know that the people are worried about pension reform.

We will review and report as much as possible about measures that the public may not worry about.]



The advisory committee announced that it plans to submit a draft reform bill to the National Assembly by mid-February.



(Video coverage: Choi Ho-jun, video editing: Kim Jin-won, CG: Jegal-chan)