House of Representatives Passes Pension Reform Bill; More Part-Time Workers to Be Eligible for Employee Program

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:03 JST, May 30, 2025

The House of Representatives passed Friday a pension reform-related bill along with a draft amendment to it that includes a supplementary provision about bolstering the basic pension program.

They will be passed onto the House of Councillors.

At the lower house’s Health, Labor and Welfare Committee meeting held earlier the same day, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba emphasized the significance of the bill’s inclusion of measures to expand the scope of eligibility for the employees’ pension program for part-time and short-term workers.

“We must establish a system that enables anyone to work in a manner that suits their needs and that provides stability to elderly people’s lives,” Ishiba said.

He also said that bolstering the basic pension program, also known as the national pension program, would “ensure the level of basic pension benefits for future generations.”

The pension reform-related bill focuses on expanding the number of workers covered by the employees’ pension program by eliminating the so-called ¥1.06 million barrier — the annual income threshold at which workers are required to join the employees’ pension program — as well as revising the minimum number of employees for a company to be required to enroll its employees in the program.

Under the draft amendment, a supplementary provision is stipulated in the bill whereby the basic pension benefit level will be raised by utilizing part of the reserve funds of the employees’ pension program, should an upcoming 2029 financial review indicate that it will decline.