Jeon Jin-sook: "Public Opinion Manipulation to Induce Support for Government Proposal"
"Clearly Explain Positive and Negative Effects and Conduct Reinvestigation"
Claims have emerged that the government manipulated a public opinion survey conducted during its pension reform efforts by removing explanations from some draft questions and emphasizing fiscal stability, thereby steering respondents toward supporting the government’s proposal.
According to Jeon Jin-sook, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea representing Gwangju Buk-gu Eul, the Ministry of Health and Welfare conducted a survey titled “Subscriber Awareness and Consent Level on National Pension System Reform” through the National Pension Research Institute of the National Pension Service from August 16 to 29. The survey targeted 2,810 male and female National Pension subscribers aged 20 to 59 nationwide and was conducted online. The budget for the survey was 29.8 million KRW.
However, it was confirmed that the explanatory materials about the National Pension System used in the survey differed between the draft and the final version. The draft described the system as a “national social security system that protects citizens and alleviates poverty” and as a system “where citizens who may experience income interruption or loss can receive benefits.” These sentences were all removed in the final version, and a sentence stating that “the reserve fund is projected to be depleted around 2055” was added. The explanation about strengthening old-age income security was omitted, leaving only an emphasis on fiscal stability.
There was also a significant difference between the draft and final versions regarding the explanation of the automatic stabilization mechanism, a key element of the pension reform plan. The draft explained the automatic stabilization mechanism with examples such as “lowering the contribution rate when the number of subscribers increases or exceeds a certain level” and “reducing benefit levels when the number of subscribers decreases or contribution income declines.” However, the final version prefaced the explanation with “some countries have introduced an ‘automatic stabilization mechanism’ that automatically adjusts pension amounts annually to address issues like population aging and declining birth rates,” and then softened the expression to simply state that “pension amounts are automatically adjusted annually.”
Additionally, despite the existence of a research report by the National Pension Research Institute titled “Necessity and Application Plan for Introducing an Automatic Adjustment Mechanism in the National Pension,” which indicated that lifetime total benefits would be reduced by about 17% if the automatic stabilization mechanism were introduced, this drawback was completely omitted.
The draft survey on “differentiated contribution rate increases by generation” described it as “a method of gradually increasing contribution rates by age group, such as raising rates upon reaching a certain age or applying higher rates to subscribers close to benefit commencement age.” However, the final version framed it as “a situation where past generations paid less contributions and received more pension benefits, while the current younger generation must pay more contributions and receive less pension,” and stated that “to ensure intergenerational equity, the speed of contribution rate increases is applied differently.”
Rep. Jeon said, “I cannot understand why a survey on a pension reform plan that critically affects citizens’ old-age income security was conducted so biasedly. Those responsible for manipulating the survey to distort public opinion in favor of the government must be held accountable,” and emphasized, “The Yoon Suk-yeol administration must withdraw the ‘automatic adjustment mechanism’ and ‘differentiated speed of contribution rate increases between generations,’ which provoke social conflict.”
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