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A stable pension system is meaningless if people cannot receive enough pensions to live on.

20 Comments

Taro Kono, one of the four candidates for LDP president, proposing the introduction of a system that guarantees a minimum pension payment regardless of the amount of contributions made.

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This is what Canada does for its basic pension - free for anyone who breathes.

The way Japan bills people, insurance style, for monthly cash payments is ridiculous. If there's a reason for this, I'd like to know. It just invites delinquency and raises administrative costs.

10 ( +11 / -1 )

The basic state pension in Japan after paying in for 40 years is less than ¥67,000 a month. So good luck to anyone who thinks thats going to be enough to live on.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

I smell another pension fund reform again. There have been so many in the last 3 decades I can't even count. Different names, different reform names, bold claims...

Just different excuse. And I bet elderly people will be persuaded among the first..

2 ( +2 / -0 )

With higher technology levels, some environmental problems causing necessary shrinking measures, disrupted unsteady employees’ work careers, many low wages sectors, shorter working hours, pandemic closures, lower birth rates and quickly aging societies, to name a few reasons, all those decades old systems have become obsolete and mostly already need massive refills from the tax money pool. Whatever it is called, it will be a kind of a basic citizens’ income and one needs extremely high efforts and luck to get significantly above that basic level, as a worker and also as a pensioner. Only an example in theory, but you will need to work double as hard and long or get double size income just to get 10% more pension than the average etc. Why that low? Yes, you guessed it…lol

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The economic situation is not unique to Japan but does raise the question about who is going to pay for it. A while back the world was asking about providing a universal basic income to the youth who are struggling to get high quality jobs, meanwhile we have a growing elderly population in most of Europe and Asia.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

The penny (or Yen) is starting to drop: no money = no consumption = crisis of capitalism. Japan appears poised to enter a new phase of its socioeconomic system; perhaps helped along by indigent boomers and a Covid knock-on effect?

0 ( +2 / -2 )

RecklessToday 12:19 pm JST

Yes, great system... When I got married I inherited my wife's non-payment into the pension scheme for her 4 years at college.

How is that.

Never had to pay for my wife but it was more than 15 years ago. She was not in the scheme and never paid before meeting me. It was not compulsory at that time to join the scheme for part time employees or students.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This is exactly why I never worked for anyone after 30, started to work for myself, I could see the end of the runway on this one.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Do they have a superannuation style system in Japan? Never having worked in the country, I dont know. In Australia that was meant to replace, to a large extent, state pensions, but the cost of living means people will still need to collect a pension, hopefully less than the full amount.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

JeffLeeSep. 28  09:57 am JST

This is what Canada does for its basic pension - free for anyone who breathes.

You have to contribute to the system before receiving a pension. The average pension is not much. In March 2021, the average payment was CAN$ 619. The maximum is about CAN$ 1,200.

Here's the official site if you would like to educate yourself:

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/publicpensions/cpp/cpp-benefit/amount.html

0 ( +1 / -1 )

@Peter Neil

You have to contribute to the system before receiving a pension

No you don't. OAS is based on years residency. Here's the official site if you would like to educate yourself:

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/publicpensions/cpp/old-age-security.html

"The amount you receive depends on how long you lived in Canada or specific countries after the age of 18."

(You're quoting the CPP, which is not the nenkin equivalent.)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

A stable pension system is meaningless if people cannot receive enough pensions to live on.

very true

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Peter Neil

Canada's basic pension is NOT based on contributions, as you asserted and which I clarified. Stop spreading misinformation.

One of my several comments was a humorous-tinged idiom, not to be taken literally. Get over it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

A pension system does not work if it does not have any money. Japan's pension system will gradually deplete all of its wealth.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

40 years for ¥65,000 a month is the minimum. If you paid in more because you made a lot of Yen, does it not go higher.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Yes, more evidence that it is not free to anyone who breathes. What, you think someone can just move to Canada and get a pension?

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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