National Pension Deducted From Paychecks Yet Unpaid: 1.5 Million Workers Bear the Loss?

Over 1.5 million workers are estimated to be suffering losses to their subscription periods because their workplaces failed to properly pay National Pension premiums even though the fees were deducted from their monthly salaries every month.

According to data submitted by the National Pension Service to Representative So Byeong-hun of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Health and Welfare Committee, as of September this year, there were 1,503,427 subscribers whose subscription periods were not fully recognized due to unpaid company insurance premiums. The average unpaid period per person was about 7 months.

To receive a monthly national pension in retirement, an individual must have a subscription period of 10 years or more. However, if a workplace is in arrears with its insurance premiums, the actual period worked may not be fully recognized as a subscription period.

It was tallied that 134,616 subscribers would meet the 10-year requirement if their actual workplace unpaid periods were added, among whom 20,982 were aged 60 or older.

The problem is that while the responsibility for paying insurance premiums lies with the business owner, workers can end up bearing the losses in subscription periods caused by arrears.

If a company defaults on insurance premiums, even if a worker directly pays the insurance premium they are supposed to shoulder, only a portion rather than the entire arrears period may be recognized as a subscription period. Furthermore, in order to have the entire arrears period recognized, workers sometimes have to pay even the insurance premiums that should be borne by the business owner.

The National Pension Service stated, "We fully empathize with the need to relieve workers who suffered disadvantages even though contributions were deducted from their wages due to the employer's default," while adding, "Regarding the plan to recognize the unpaid insurance premium period as a subscription period, cautious review is necessary due to financial burdens and issues of fairness."

Reported by Park Se-won | Video by Kim Hye-joo | Graphics by Yook Do-hyun | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.