President Lee: "To Reduce Elderly Poverty, We Must Change the Basic Pension... How About a Hahu-Sangbak System?"

The Financial News reported that on the 16th, President Lee Jae Myung raised issues with the way the basic pension is paid and proposed shifting to a "hahu-sangbak" (literally, thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top) system. This would mean paying a higher basic pension to low-income seniors.
On X (formerly Twitter), President Lee shared a news article titled "Basic pension for couples that used to be cut will change drastically... how?" He commented, "A couple growing old together should not be penalized for it."
President Lee noted, "I am told there are even cases where people get sham divorces just to avoid reductions in their basic pension," and stressed, "Because the reduced payments are due to a lack of fiscal resources, we will correct this as much as possible."
He went on, "In our country, which has one of the highest overall and elderly suicide rates in the world, the biggest cause of elderly suicide is poverty. To reduce elderly poverty, it seems we need to change the basic pension a bit." He pointed out, "Right now, a senior whose monthly income is several million won and a senior with zero income receive the same amount in basic pension."
He then asked, "At this point, couldn’t we afford to be a little more generous to poor seniors?" He added, "One option might be to leave the current payments as they are, and apply the hahu-sangbak approach only to future increases. What do you think?"
The article President Lee shared that day reported that starting in 2027, the government plans to gradually lower the reduction rate applied to elderly couples receiving the basic pension, beginning with low-income households. According to the Health and Welfare Committee of the National Assembly, the Ministry of Health and Welfare presented this plan in a report on key policy initiatives at a full session of the standing committee held on the 10th. In particular, the ministry announced that it would first improve the "spousal reduction rule," under which each spouse’s pension had been cut by 20 percent simply because both were receiving the basic pension, focusing initially on vulnerable groups.
cjk@fnnews.com Reporter Choi Jong-geun Reporter