From 8 April 2002 they saw a rise of 4.1% in their basic pension.
To get any basic pension you need to have paid 25% of your contributions.
On the other hand, former congressmen get 20 times more than the basic pension.
In Japan, a third of self-employed people no longer contribute to the basic pension system.
In the countryside local governments pay a basic pension which varies greatly depending on their financial health.
Obviously, funding the basic pension through the broad-based consumption tax would lower the burden on active workers and employing firms.
In 2008 Korea introduced an earned-income tax credit, a universal basic pension and an insurance scheme providing long-term care for the elderly.
The DPJ position was later modified, with the upper limit removed, further strengthening the expressed intention to make the basic pension a universal entitlement.
This was proposed by the Conservatives as part of a scheme to fund the basic pension, but rejected by the Labour Party when it was in opposition.
However, the government is clearly under enormous pressure to provide a generous pensions settlement next year after the electoral backlash against the 75p increase in the basic pension.
In particular, they announced that increases to the basic pension would no longer be linked to the rise in average earnings, but to inflation, which is usually lower.
The business associations have been push to covering the entire basic pension (currently JPY 66, 000 monthly) through the consumption tax, with the goal of leaving no person uncovered, and making payments to all retirees, regardless of income.
However much the experts may insist that the basic pension is paid for by current taxation, pensioners see it as a return on their national-insurance contributions and the continuing real freeze in its value as an affront.
Less stringent rules for qualifying for the basic pension will help women, many of whom do not make enough contributions during their working lives to claim the full amount, usually because of taking time off to raise children.
Finalize proposals for tax and social security system reform before the end of FY 2011, including raising the consumption tax rate to 17 percent and basic pension benefits of 70, 000 yen per month for all persons 65 years and older.
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Spending on pensioners, which takes up 40% of the social-security budget, is likely to go up, not down: the government has promised to keep the basic pension, pay more to poorer pensioners, and encourage more people to save for retirement.
Moreover, because it would be funded, the basic pension plus could be much larger than today's basic state pension: since 1979, the annual rate of return on private pensions was double that assumed by the government in drawing up its plans.
But if the power of the grey vote secures a big one-off real increase in the basic pension before an election, pensioners are unlikely to stop there, and allow the subsequent erosion of its value through the resumption of the link with prices.
The pensions reforms Britain is now putting through will, over the decades, give us a system that is affordable and fair between the generations, by ensuring that, though each citizen is guaranteed a basic pension, they will be expected to top that up with their own finances.
When you leave the company or retire, you transfer 401(k) assets to the pension plan, and the pension plan converts the rollover amount to an annuity that is actuarially equal to the amount you transferred, guaranteeing you additional lifetime payments in excess of your basic pension checks.
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It will involve merging the state second pension with the basic state pension, to create one flat-rate payment.
The change involves merging the state second pension with the basic state pension.
The state pension comes in two parts, a basic state pension and an earnings related element previously called Serps, but now known as the State Second Pension (S2P).
And the basic state pension will be re-linked in 2012 to earnings, which increase faster than prices.
The basic state pension, first introduced in 1908, is one of the sacred cows of Britain's welfare state.
The survey shows that on average, recipients of the government's basic rural pension receive just 720 yuan a year.
The Scheme paid an amount in addition to the Basic State Pension related to earnings while you were working.
But these reforms pale into insignificance compared with its decision to maintain the price indexation of the basic state pension.
Although Mark will be entitled to a credit towards the basic state pension, that credit does not count towards the S2P.
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