The government will raise the benefits of the basic pension fund to 300-thousand won a month by 2021.
 
Park Kwang-on, spokesman for the de facto transition team State Policy Planning and Advisory Committee, announced the raise plan in a news briefing on Thursday.
 
The payment will increase to 250-thousand won next year and eventually to 300-thousand won by 2021.
 
The spokesman said that in order to raise the benefits in the first half of next year, a revision to the Basic Pension Law will be submitted to the National Assembly in October this year. Next year’s raise will require an additional budget of two-point-four trillion won.
 
Introduced in June 2014, up to 206-thousand won of basic pension benefits is given to senior citizens aged 65 or over who are in the lower 70 percent income bracket. 

Under the current law, however, recipients of the national pension program don’t receive the full amount.