Payments continued for 3.5 years after 2022 death

Lawmaker Park Ji-won urges urgent reform of death-notification system

National audit data show that a basic pension recipient who died in 2022 continued to receive payments for 1,261 days afterward. [Yonhap]
National audit data show that a basic pension recipient who died in 2022 continued to receive payments for 1,261 days afterward. [Yonhap]

National audit data have revealed that a deceased recipient continued to collect basic pension payments for three and a half years after death.

According to documents the Ministry of Health and Welfare submitted to Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Park Ji-won — a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee representing North Jeolla Province's Gunsan, Gimje and Buan constituency — a basic pension recipient who died in 2022 received payments for 1,261 days after death.

Cases of livelihood benefits paid out after a recipient's death totaled 790 from 2022 through August this year, including one instance in which payments continued for 116 days after death. The recovery rate for the erroneously disbursed livelihood benefits was limited to 48.5 percent.

Park said the mismanagement extended to child allowances as well, with payments continuing for up to a year after a recipient's death, exposing systemic gaps in welfare benefit oversight.

"The government must urgently draw up improvement measures, including reviewing the death-information sharing network with the Ministry of Interior and Safety and other agencies," Park said.

Amid these concerns, mandatory spending on basic pensions is projected to surpass 30 trillion won ($22.4 billion) by 2030. In its "2026–2030 National Fiscal Management Plan" recently submitted to the National Assembly, the government forecast that mandatory basic pension outlays would reach 30.09 trillion won that year.

Spending is estimated to grow at an average annual rate of 6.8 percent from this year through 2030, up 0.1 percentage point from the 6.7 percent average annual growth projected in last year's five-year plan covering 2025–2029.

Basic pension expenditure stood at 23.14 trillion won in this year's original budget and is projected to rise to 25.65 trillion won next year, 28.3 trillion won in 2028 and 29.16 trillion won in 2029, before crossing the 30 trillion won threshold in 2030.

At the same time, the share of eligible elderly people actually receiving the pension has been falling, as the overall senior population is growing faster than the number of recipients amid South Korea's entry into super-aged society status.

The basic pension coverage rate stood at 67.6 percent in 2021 and fell to 67.5 percent in 2022, 67.0 percent in 2023 and 66.0 percent in 2024, dropping further to 65.3 percent in 2025.

Over that four-year period, the elderly population grew by 22.4 percent while the number of basic pension recipients increased by only 18.3 percent, pushing the coverage rate down by 2.3 percentage points.


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