DYING OFF GETS LESS COMFORTABLE:

Coalition rams pension bills through welfare committee: Chaos in House of Councilors as opposition protests (TETSUSHI KAJIMOTO, 6/04/04, Japan Times)

The ruling coalition rammed the government's controversial pension reform bills through a House of Councilors committee amid chaotic scenes at the Diet on Thursday.

The Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition hopes to have the package of pension bills -- designed to increase premiums while cutting benefits to save the ailing system from collapse -- enacted by a Upper House plenary session on Friday.

But the opposition camp plans to put up resistance, possibly by submitting censure motions against members of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to delay a vote on the bills.

Ruling coalition lawmakers insist that the bills must be enacted to prevent the health of the nation's troubled pension system from deteriorating further in light of the rapidly aging population. [...]

Under the government's proposed legislation, premiums for the corporate employee pension program would be raised to 18.3 percent by fiscal 2017 from the current 13.58 percent, while those for the basic National Pension Program would be raised to a maximum 16,900 yen a month from the current 13,300 yen.

The government had promised that, although pension benefits would be reduced over the next 19 years, they would not fall below 50 percent of the average annual income for a model case of a 40-year-old salaried worker who has a spouse of the same age without a full-time job and pays premiums for 40 years before retirement.