Nearly 1 million people benefit from reduced pension eligibility

Reduce retirement age

The draft revised Law on Social Insurance (SI) proposes to reduce the age of receiving social retirement benefits by 5 years compared to the current one.

Accordingly, the draft stipulates that Vietnamese citizens aged 75 and over who do not have pensions, monthly social insurance benefits and other monthly social benefits will receive social retirement benefits guaranteed by the State budget.

This regulation institutionalizes the policy of Resolution 28, aiming to achieve the Central target of about 60% of people over retirement age receiving monthly pension, social insurance and social retirement benefits by 2030.

Besides the proposal to reduce the age of receiving social pension benefits, another new point in the draft Law is to add a class of people receiving monthly benefits paid by the Social Insurance Fund.

Accordingly, the Draft Law supplements the provisions that when employees reach retirement age but have not paid social insurance for enough time to receive pension (less than 15 years of payment) and are not old enough to receive social pension benefits (not old enough to receive 75 years old), they can choose to receive monthly benefits for the period before reaching the age of receiving social pension benefits depending on the time of payment, salary, and monthly income of social insurance contributions of the employee; at the same time, during the period of receiving monthly benefits, they are entitled to health insurance guaranteed by the State budget.

According to the drafting agency, this regulation helps increase the number of beneficiaries of monthly subsidies without causing a large increase in the State budget.

Employees who have paid compulsory social insurance for 5 years, if they do not receive a lump sum social insurance payment, can receive a monthly allowance (at least equal to the social pension allowance) as soon as they reach retirement age instead of having to wait until they are 75 years old.

It is expected that the total number of people benefiting from this policy will increase to over 800,000 people due to the reduction in age and about 300,000 people due to the linking of the social pension subsidy level with the basic social insurance level (compulsory and voluntary social insurance).

Roadmap to gradually reduce retirement age

National Assembly Delegate Ta Thi Yen (Dien Bien) agreed with the regulation on supplementing social pension benefits to form a multi-layered social insurance system according to the orientation in Resolution No. 28.

According to the delegate, this regulation is to gradually move towards the goal that all Vietnamese citizens aged 75 and over who do not have pensions, monthly social insurance benefits and other monthly social benefits will receive social retirement benefits guaranteed by the budget in order to achieve the goal of expanding coverage, so that no one is left behind.

Delegate Thach Phuoc Binh (Tra Vinh) said that this Draft Law has breakthrough provisions, closely following Resolution 28 of the Central Committee. In particular, the Law includes social pension benefits, reducing the age of receiving benefits from 80 years old to 75 years old.

However, delegate Thach Phuoc Binh said, there should be a roadmap to raise the retirement age from 75 years old and gradually reduce it further.

Examining the draft Law, the Social Committee basically agreed with the Government's proposal on the conditions for receiving social pension benefits.

However, the Social Committee recommends continuing to review relevant regulations, ensuring that the regulations on conditions for receiving social pension benefits do not cause policy conflicts, while at the same time, ensuring resources from the State budget to implement the policy.

Regarding the regime for employees who are not eligible for pension and are not old enough to receive social pension benefits, the Social Committee requests clarification on whether to pay only from the contribution for participants up to the age of 75 or during this time, they will receive both social pension benefits and the contributions they have accumulated?