Exclusions due to higher income, assets jump nearly 60% in 3 years
The number of elderly Koreans dropped from the basic pension program due to rising income or assets has jumped nearly 60 percent over the past three years, new data shows. Rising home prices are widely seen as a major driver, but the government said it has limited ability to pinpoint the exact causes.
According to data obtained from the National Pension Service by People Power Party lawmaker Kim Mi-ae of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee, the number of recipients removed from the basic pension program due to increases in income or assets rose from 52,000 in 2021 to 83,000 in 2024 — a jump of 59.6 percent.
Income- and asset-related exclusions also grew as a share of all mid-program removals during the same period, from 17.4 percent to 21.3 percent.
The government has no clear picture of why those individuals' income or assets increased — or whether the disqualifying growth came from earned income, financial income or general property holdings.
The inability to distinguish between seniors who "graduated" from the program after earning more from work and those who lost eligibility because of rising financial assets or higher publicly assessed real estate values makes it difficult to set an effective policy response, critics say.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare raised the 2026 basic pension eligibility threshold for single-person households to 2.47 million won ($1,600) per month — up 190,000 won, or 8.3 percent, from the previous year — citing rising housing and land values among elderly households as a key reason.
The move underscores how real estate appreciation directly affects whether seniors qualify for the benefit.
The concentration of exclusions in Gyeonggi Province, where 17,000 people were dropped in 2024, and Seoul, where 11,000 were removed, is also seen as linked to surging property values in those areas.
"The basic pension is the cornerstone of retirement income security for 7.79 million elderly Koreans, yet the government cannot even properly explain why hundreds of thousands of people are dropped from it every year," Kim said. "We need a statistical system that breaks down the reasons for exclusion — earned income, financial income, general assets — and manages them separately."
sun@heraldcorp.com
