Category Archives: Pension

Social security policy should leave no one behind

January 6, 2010 in Health Insurance, News, Pension

The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)-led administration has called for a “shift from concrete to people” — spending taxpayers’ money on people’s livelihoods, rather than public works projects. This is reflected in the fiscal 2010 budget draft, but it suggests that the government desperately secured financial resources to carry out its election campaign pledges, rather [...]

New pension body opens for business

January 5, 2010 in Health Insurance, News, Pension

Japan Pension Service, an organization set up to succeed the scandal-plagued Social Insurance Agency, started full operations Monday with a pledge to restore public trust in the public pension system. The names of 312 social insurance offices nationwide have been changed to pension service offices. The entity has drawn up 10 pledges to improve customer [...]

Population probably shrank even more in 2009, ministry estimates

January 1, 2010 in Immigration, News, Pension

Japan’s population probably shrank further in 2009 as births fell by roughly 22,000 to about 1,069,000, the health ministry said in estimates released Thursday. “The trend of increasing population decline is expected to continue in the future as the number of deaths rises due to the aging of the population, while the number of women [...]

Pensions body faces tough test

December 31, 2009 in Health Insurance, News, Pension

Japan Pension Service, an organization set up to take over the work of the Social Insurance Agency, will start operations Friday. Though the new entity will attempt to regain trust of the public by tackling problems such as the pension records fiasco, it faces many hurdles. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama met the 13 people chosen [...]

‘Pension falsification rampant’ in Ibaraki Pref.

October 19, 2009 in News, Pension

Some social insurance offices in Ibaraki Prefecture falsified company managers’ average monthly earnings that will be used as the basis for calculating their pensions, and deleted 10 percent of companies’ delinquent accounts from official records, according to sources close to the office. The sources said some of the offices falsified data to make their pension [...]

Brace for a possible spring shock

September 29, 2009 in Health Insurance, News, Pension

When spring approaches next year, many foreigners in Japan could be in for a rude awakening: From April 1, all those who apply to extend their visa in Japan will be asked to show proof of enrollment in one or other of Japan’s main national health systems, the shakai hoken (social health insurance and pension) [...]

NTT fails to pay pension premiums

August 24, 2009 in News, Pension

The Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. group [a company one third owned by the Japanese government] failed to pay to the state a portion of pension premiums of about 4,000 employees over more than six years to August 2003 despite deducting the money from the workers’ salaries. Sources attributed the failure to clerical errors. The [...]

Social Insurance Agency reprimands collection chief over altered records

August 2, 2009 in News, Pension

The Social Insurance Agency has taken disciplinary action against a Tokyo social insurance office worker for altering records to understate people’s standard monthly earnings, which form the basis for calculating pension insurance premiums. It is the only case in which the agency has admitted alteration of records by a worker, and the first time for [...]

New law: no dues, no visa

July 28, 2009 in Action, Immigration, News, Pension

On a drab, rainy Sunday in June, a group of foreign workers gathered at the office of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu in Shimbashi to discuss an equally drab topic: social insurance. According to a new immigration law passed by the Diet earlier this month, foreign residents will be required to show [...]

30,000 people in Japan unaware they are qualified to receive pensions: survey

July 2, 2009 in News, Pension

An estimated 30,000 people in Japan without pensions are unaware that they are qualified to receive them, a survey by the Social Insurance Agency has indicated. In many cases pension premium payment records exist while the beneficiaries remain unknown, and there have also been cases in which social insurance offices have told people they are [...]