Over 300,000 Recipients Receiving More Than 1 Million Won Monthly from National Pension

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] The National Pension Service announced on the 5th that the number of recipients receiving a monthly old-age pension of 1 million won or more exceeded 300,000 for the first time this year.

According to the status of National Pension benefit payments in the first half of the year, as of June this year, the number of old-age pension recipients receiving 1 million won or more per month was 306,000. This marks the first time in 13 years since 2007, when recipients receiving 1 million won or more per month first appeared, that the number has surpassed 300,000.

The average monthly pension amount for old-age pension recipients was 536,000 won, and the highest recipient received 2,223,000 won per month.

The number of recipients who have been enrolled for more than 20 years also increased every year. This year, there were 752,811 recipients, which is 2.3 times higher than in 2015 (322,500). The proportion of these recipients among the total also rose by 7.5 percentage points to 17.7% compared to 10.2% in 2015. The average monthly pension amount for this group was 930,000 won.

Among old-age pension recipients, women accounted for 1,475,000, representing 34.7% of all recipients. The number of female recipients increased by 49% compared to 990,234 in 2015. During the same period, the number of male old-age pension recipients increased by 28.4%. The National Pension Service explained that the higher growth rate among female recipients reflects the increase in women's social activities.

The number of couples both receiving old-age pensions was 390,439 couples (780,878 individuals), with the highest combined pension amount for a couple being 3,658,000 won. The total number of couples receiving a combined monthly pension of 1 million won or more was 94,849, among whom 2,745 couples received 2 million won or more.

Meanwhile, the National Pension Service paid a total of 11.95 trillion won in pensions to 5.14 million people in the first half of this year. This amounts to about 1.99 trillion won paid monthly. Since the first payments of disability and survivor pensions in 1989 and old-age pensions in 1993, the number of pension recipients has increased significantly every year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.