TOKYO: The House of Representatives passed Friday (May 30) a pension reform-related bill along with a draft amendment to it that includes a supplementary provision about bolstering the basic pension programme.
They will be passed onto the House of Councillors.
At the lower house’s Health, Labor and Welfare Committee meeting held earlier the same day, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba emphasised the significance of the bill’s inclusion of measures to expand the scope of eligibility for the employees’ pension programme for part-time and short-term workers.
“We must establish a system that enables anyone to work in a manner that suits their needs and that provides stability to elderly people’s lives,” Ishiba said.
He also said that bolstering the basic pension program, also known as the national pension programme, would “ensure the level of basic pension benefits for future generations.”
The pension reform-related bill focuses on expanding the number of workers covered by the employees’ pension program by eliminating the so-called ¥1.06 million barrier — the annual income threshold at which workers are required to join the employees’ pension programme — as well as revising the minimum number of employees for a company to be required to enroll its employees in the programme.
Under the draft amendment, a supplementary provision is stipulated in the bill whereby the basic pension benefit level will be raised by utilising part of the reserve funds of the employees’ pension programme, should an upcoming 2029 financial review indicate that it will decline. - The Yomiuri Shimbun/ANN
