Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) said on Friday that a much-anticipated national pension system will be put into practice on Oct. 1 of next year, creating a social security mechanism for many disadvantaged people who currently lack any pension benefits at all.
Chang made the remarks in a speech delivered at an evening party marking the 42nd founding anniversary of the Christian Tribune News, a local newspaper.
Noting that the national pension system will cover some 3.5 million people who currently lack any pension benefits, Chang said the new mechanism, coupled with the national health insurance program that has long been in place, will contribute to the establishment of a fair and just society.
The Legislative Yuan passed the National Pension Law (國民年金法) in July.
This law makes it possible for people aged 25 to 65 who are not covered by military, civil service, teachers or labor insurance programs, as well as farmers under the age of 65, to join the program.
They will be required to pay a monthly contribution based on a percentage of the national minimum wage. Contributions will be calculated on a graded scale ranging from 6.5 percent to 12 percent of minimum wage.
After retirement at the age of 65, contributors will receive a pension of up to NT$8,986 per month for the rest of their lives, a figure that will be adjusted in line with changes in the consumer price index.
Given the current minimum wage of NT$17,280, a monthly contribution of 6.5 percent of the minimum wage would amount to NT$1,123. Of this amount, a citizen would pay 60 percent, or NT$674, per month, while the government would cover the remaining 40 percent or NT$449.
After 40 years, the total amount contributed by the citizen would be NT$515,082, while the payout would amount to NT$1.83 million over 17 years, based on an average lifespan of 82 years.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not