Civic groups yesterday said that the new version of the National Pension Draft Law (國民年金法草案) needed to be reassessed carefully before being sent to the Legislative Yuan for preliminary evaluations. The current draft is poorly designed and does not ensure the rights of many minority groups, they said.
The new draft was approved by the Executive Yuan on Monday, sparking the discontent of many civic groups. The proposed pension law has been discussed for over 13 years, but has never passed preliminary Legislative Yuan evaluations.
Wu Yu-chin (
The draft poses great problems since it aims to incorporate labor insurance with pensions in an effort to take care of more people than they can actually afford to, Wu said.
Wu said that instead the government should consider abandoning the pension law and work on expanding labor insurance alone.
Labor insurance can be expanded to include families of workers and in addition, subsidies for the elderly and the disabled can be given monthly instead of in lump sums.
Wu said that the elderly and disabled were better off receiving monthly subsidies since they may otherwise spend the whole amount in a short period of time.
Chen Chieh-ju (陳節如), vice-chairperson of the Parents' Association for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities, said that if the pension system worked according to the labor insurance structure, many minority groups would not be able to afford the insurance fee.
To protect the economic rights of the disabled, pensions should also be allocated according to a person's ability to work instead of the severity of their disabilities, Chen said.
The new draft stipulates that the severely handicapped are entitled to pensions while those with `medium' handicaps are not.
Chen said that some people with `medium' handicaps have no ability to work, and that the proposed pension scheme would provide no funds for them.
Huang Min-jun, a social worker at the Alliance for the Physically Disabled, said the new draft stipulates that if a person with `medium' handicaps became severely handicapped, they would then be entitled to a pension.
However, the person would have to repay prior subsidies received from the government before receiving their new pension, she said.
Wu said that according to the draft, pensions0 were not awarded to those who have assets over NT$5,000,000 (US$156,000).
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
Taiwanese barista Xie Yi-chen (謝溢宸) recently triumphed at the 2024 World Coffee Championships, taking home 1st place in the World Latte Art category. Xie, 28, impressed the judges in the final round with patterns of a whale, a moose, and a dragon in the three-day competition that took place in Copenhagen, Denmark from June 27-29, clinching the title of latte art world champion during his first time representing Taiwan on the world stage. At a press conference held by the Taiwan Coffee Association on Thursday, Xie said that creating latte art gives him a tremendous feeling of achievement. Speaking about his entries in
The annual Taipei Summer Festival, which starts today, is to tone down its fireworks displays, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said on Monday. Fireworks displays are to be held at the riverside site in Datong District’s (大同) Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area on four days at this year’s festival, with the first today, and then on Wednesday next week, July 31 and Aug. 10, the department said. There were eight displays last year, with the reduction aimed at minimizing inconvenience to local residents, it said. The first three shows, which are all on Wednesdays, are to last for five minutes, while the final
EYE ON MAYORS: The DPP would file a complaint with the Control Yuan against Ko and Chiang over their handling of reports of abuse at a preschool in the city The Taipei City Government’s belated response under Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) and his predecessor, Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), to alleged child sex abuse at a kindergarten resulted in more children being victimized, two Taipei City Councilors said yesterday. A Taipei preschool teacher has been charged with sexually abusing six children from 2021 to last year at a school registered to his mother. Prosecutors are reportedly considering additional charges amid a wave of new accusations allegedly linking the suspect to 20 other abused children and the discovery at his residence of more than 600 sexually explicit videos featuring minors. The