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The story
Fukushima Chuo TV’s report on elderly people who keep working despite saying “pension alone isn’t enough to live on” drew reactions on 5ch. Since the pension system was originally designed to be combined with severance pay or personal savings, opinions were divided over disparities in elderly savings and the burden passed between generations.
“Pension Alone Isn’t Enough to Live On”: Elderly Hope for a Leisurely “Retirement” but Keep Working Anyway #MyNormal
10/15 (Thu) 16:00 JST
Fukushima Chuo TV
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Totally agree. Just figure out what to do once the savings run out, when it actually happens.
There are all kinds of elderly people, but among those from generations whose money lost value over time, there are probably plenty who have no choice but to rely on their pension.
There aren't nearly as many old people sitting on piles of savings as you think.
One trip to the hospital and you're paying tens of thousands of yen.
The ones who actually built up wealth from that are the people in their 80s now. I'm over 60, and the 'economic miracle' was already ancient history by the time I was in high school.
But you don't want immigrants either, do you?
Isn't it the long lifespans that are abnormal, not the working?
It's because they're healthy enough to work.
Today's elderly are loaded with savings. Of the 1,000 trillion yen in cash and bank deposits in Japan, people aged 70 and up alone account for 90% of it.
So yeah — spend your savings already.
No, that's wrong. Not every elderly person is able to keep working. Their bodies start falling apart in all sorts of places, and they just can't handle a normal job anymore.
*Public pension plus private pension, I mean.
With only 25 years, that sounds about right. If it were 40 years, fair enough, but… (￣∀￣) (a smug/snickering emoticon)
Employees' pension (kosei nenkin) payouts are set based on your salary and bonuses during your working years plus your contribution period, so even under kosei nenkin, a low monthly salary means a smaller payout. In other words, it pays off to have higher salary and bonuses from your 40s onward until retirement. This person only worked 25 years, so their salary probably wasn't that high to begin with (and back in their era, bonuses weren't even factored into the calculation).
But today's 60-somethings and today's working generation barely do any overtime — they clock out on time with cushy, relaxed jobs — and they still expect a leisurely retirement? That's awfully presumptuous.
I think Re: #160 has a point. Everyone becomes elderly eventually, and by the time it's our turn, the world will probably be an even harsher, harder place to live in.
> "Today's 60-somethings and the working generation barely do any overtime — they clock out on time with cushy jobs — and they still expect a leisurely retirement? That's awfully presumptuous."
That's the generation that got asked 'Can you work 24 hours a day?' (a famous 1980s energy-drink ad slogan).
If you wanted a leisurely retirement, the only way was to have lots of kids so the next generation could support you. But everyone made excuses, had fewer kids anyway, and now wants a cushy retirement regardless? That's just not happening.
They probably should have invested to keep up with inflation. But back when today's elderly were working, a lot of people saw stocks as basically gambling — something no respectable person would touch.
There's no way any working-age person today is naive enough to think they'll live on pension alone. Fifty-year mortgages are even a thing now — everyone's already planning to work until illness makes it impossible to keep going.
Those 50-year home loans are exactly a trap riding on that assumption, but when you're that young, there's no way you'd see it coming…
The world situation and the economy just keep changing, so there's no way to predict what things will look like by the time we're old ourselves — I bet we'll end up with a lot of regrets once we actually get there.
Re: #178
It really is reckless. Even though life expectancy has gone up, healthy life expectancy is still only around 70. In the old days, healthy life expectancy and lifespan were basically the same thing — now we've just tacked on extra years where your body and brain are falling apart, and you work through illness until you die.
That's not it. Workplaces that have no choice but to rely on old people are almost all terrible ("black") companies that young people won't go near in the first place.
Seriously, though.
Big corporations have turned into full-on nursing homes — nothing new ever gets done, young employees get treated like caregivers, and payroll costs quietly eat the budget so raises are impossible. A perfect triple whammy.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
From the outset, Japan’s public pension system was designed on the assumption that retirees would combine pension income with severance pay or personal savings — it was never meant to cover living expenses on its own. The real value of pensions has also kept eroding due to mechanisms like “macroeconomic indexing,” which curbs benefit growth relative to inflation. In the thread, opinions clashed between those arguing elderly people generally hold large savings and those countering that individual circumstances vary too much to generalize. Note that the figures cited in the thread about one generation’s share of savings come from a poster’s comment and aren’t backed by a cited source, so some caution is warranted. Healthy life expectancy is said to be around 70, and the reality that many elderly people spend the gap between that and average life expectancy still working underlies the “work while you’re still able” argument. Some also pointed out that elderly people staying in the workforce narrows job opportunities for younger generations, so the debate over fairness between generations looks set to continue.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread ““Pension Alone Isn’t Enough to Live On”: Elderly Hope for a Leisurely “Retirement” but Keep Working Anyway.”
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