人気ブログランキング | 話題のタグを見る

ねんきん定期便 制度改革の議論につなげたい

The Yomiuri Shimbun (Apr. 5, 2009)
New pension notice could prompt reforms
ねんきん定期便 制度改革の議論につなげたい(4月5日付・読売社説)

Regular and careful checks of your pension information serve as the most basic way of ensuring you will receive accurate pension payouts.
 自分の年金記録は、まず、自らしっかり確認することが第一だ。

The government has decided to send out pension information records to every holder of a public pension policy just once a year, in the month their birthday falls. The mailout is called a "nenkin teikibin," or regular pension coverage notice.
公的年金の現役加入者に毎年1回、誕生月に届く「ねんきん定期便」の発送が始まった。

The "nenkin tokubetsubin" (pension coverage special notice) that was sent to everyone with a public pension policy until the end of last year served as an emergency information notice--part of an effort to track down the holders of about 50 million unidentified pension account records.
 昨年末までに届いた「ねんきん特別便」は該当者不明の年金記録約5000万件の持ち主を捜すための、いわば緊急情報だった。

===

System too complicated

The new annual notice is designed to allow current public pension program holders to confirm the details of their pensions with the government. Therefore, they include far more information than appeared on the special notice.
 今後の定期便は、国との年金契約の詳細確認である。情報は特別便より格段に多い。

As we cannot fully trust information kept by the Social Insurance Agency, each one of us must carefully check the information we receive.
社会保険庁が管理してきた記録が信頼できない以上、一人ひとりが念入りにチェックしなければならない。

The biggest difference between the special notice and the regular notice is that the latter includes the standard monthly salary earned by salaried workers for the period they are or were in an employees pension program--an estimate, updated each year, of every salaried worker's average monthly earnings, on which pension benefits will be calculated.
 特別便と最も違うのは、会社員として厚生年金に加入していた期間の「標準報酬月額」が記載されていることだ。毎年の大まかな月給である。これに基づいて将来の年金額が計算される。

There must be few people who can remember what they earned decades ago.
 何十年も前の給与額を正確に覚えている人は少ないだろう。

Still, you must carefully check to see if, for example, your salary is shown to have sharply declined at one point, even though you do not remember ever taking a pay cut. In such a case, it is highly likely that the company you were working at or a social insurance office made mistakes or intentionally tampered with your data.
 だが、給料が大きく変動した記憶がないのに標準報酬月額が急減していれば、要注意である。勤務先や社会保険事務所のミスか改ざんがあった可能性が高い。

But there are upper and lower limits listed for the amount of standard monthly salaries. Getting to grips with the entries in the regular pension coverage notice requires considerable knowledge of the national pension system.
 ただし、標準報酬月額にも上限と下限がある。こうした定期便の記載を理解するには、年金制度についてかなりの知識が必要だ。

Why is the system so complicated and hard to understand? That must be the feeling of most people who will receive the notice.
 なぜ、これほどまで難しく、分かりにくいのか。定期便を受け取った人の多くが、そんな感想を抱くことだろう。

That the regular public notice will be hard for the public to understand might sound ironic, but it could prove to be a point of major significance.
 皮肉なことだが、それも定期便の大きな意義かもしれない。

Through close checks of the regular notices, we may come to understand the pension system's complexities and defects. We may also come to recognize the importance of appropriate management of information and of having a workable confirmation system. The new system must be treated as a prime opportunity to promote discussion on pension system reform and on the introduction of a social security number system.
 定期便の点検を通じて、制度の複雑さと不備が見え、情報管理と確認システムの重要性も認識される。年金改革や社会保障番号の導入に向け、国民的議論を醸成する契機とするべきだ。

Efforts to correct pension record errors and ensure pension holders' rights have faced significant hurdles.
 年金記録を正し、権利を回復する作業は難航している。

The holders of only 20 percent of the 50 million or so unidentified pension account records have been discovered so far.
 該当者不明だった約5000万件の記録は、まだ2割しか持ち主が判明していない。

A third-party committee tasked with officially classifying pension record errors as mistakes has been overwhelmed by the number of claims.
記録の誤りを認定する第三者委員会も処理が追いついていない。
Even after such records have been corrected, it has taken about a year for people to receive the correct amount of pension benefits.
記録が訂正されてから正しい年金が支給されるまで、1年近くもかかっている。


===

No time to waste

The government's advisory panel on the ideal administration of health, labor and welfare policy has proposed a temporary personnel increase to solve the pension records problem.
Taking this proposal into consideration, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry is to increase the level of staff involved in works concerning the problem from the current 8,000 to a temporary level of more than 10,000.
 政府の「厚生労働行政の在り方に関する懇談会」は、記録問題を解決するため、臨時的に人員を増強するよう提言した。これを受けて、担当職員は現在の8000人から1万人以上に増える。

However, the key word here is "temporary." They will have to tackle the problem intensively and proceed with clerical work swiftly.
 ただし、「臨時的に」という条件が重要だ。集中的に取り組み、迅速に事務処理を進めなければならない。

If time is wasted, it will be impossible to regain the public's confidence in the pension system, and the only outcome will have been a swelling of employee numbers at the ministry and Social Insurance Agency.
何年も時間をかけるようでは、年金制度の信頼回復が遠のくばかりか、厚労省と社保庁を肥大化させることにもなろう。
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, April 5, 2009)
(2009年4月5日01時32分 読売新聞)
by kiyoshimat | 2009-04-05 10:24 | 英字新聞

英字新聞の学習サイト


by kiyoshimat