June 20, 2019

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on June 19 held a one-on-one debate with Prime Minister Abe regarding pensions in the Diet and demanded the abolition of the “macroeconomic slide” mechanism currently used to calculate pensions by presenting a JCP proposal on financial resources needed to make the public pension system sustainable and reliable.

At a press conference after the debate, Shii said, “PM Abe made no response to my explanation about the party’s proposal. Criticizing our demand for the abolition of the ‘macroeconomic slide’ scheme as irrational, he just repeated what this scheme is.”

Shii said, “The government stance toward the issue of insufficient pension benefits is totally unacceptable. At the same time, we, opposition parties have a responsibility to make a proposal in order to meet public demand for a sustainable pension program. This is why I presented our proposal to adopt a better pension program.”

In the proposal, the JCP demands that the baseline income for flat-rate pension contributions be increased from the current 10 million yen a year to 20 million yen a year and that a system to limit the amount of pension benefits paid to high-income pensioners be introduced. It establishes the fact that it is possible to add another one trillion yen every year to the finances of the public pension system if these measures are implemented.

Shii said that the JCP proposal clearly shows the way to sustain the pension system by doing away with the “macroeconomic slide” mechanism.

Past related articles:
> 74% in opinion poll concerned about adequate money to live on in old age [June 18, 2019]
> 'Save \20 million for your old age' report surfaces as political focus [June 13, 2019]
> Koike grills PM Abe about gov’t report admitting to insufficient pension benefits [June 11, 2019]