Japan Press Weekly

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2014 January 15 - 21 [POLITICS]

21 million pension records will be left unidentified

An advisory panel to the welfare minister on January 17 compiled a report, in effect, to discontinue the search for holders of the unidentified 21.12 million pension premium payment records.

The issue of unidentified pension records came to light in 2007 with 50.95 million unknown records in total.

Abe Shinzo, serving as prime minister at that time under his first Cabinet, promised that his government would work to identify each and every payer of these unidentified pension premiums so that they can receive their pension benefits.

To accomplish this complicated work, specialized knowledge and efforts are necessary.

However, the then government dismantled the Social Insurance Agency which had managed pension-related documents and privatized its service to a new institution. In addition, the authorities forced a 10,000-cut in agency personnel which in fact increased the difficulty in matching individuals to unidentified records.

The panel report also admits to the fact that the quality and quantity of personnel available to do the work are insufficient to accurately identify the payees.

As of September 2013, 29.83 million out of 50.95 million unknown pension records were identified. Yet, 21.12 million records (41%) still remain unidentified. Of these, 9.27 million records have no clue as to who the holders are whatsoever. Work to collate 600-million written documents with online records is continuing.


Past related issues:
> SIA estimates 20 million pension records as hard to identify[December 12, 2007]
> 14.3 million more pension records reported as unidentified[June 7 & 8, 2007]
> Unidentified pension premium payment total could be as much as 20 trillion yen: JCP Koike[June 6, 2007]
> 50 million pension records remain unidentified[ June 1, 2007]