Japan's Creaking Pension System Could Deal Abe Election Blow
- Suggestion retirees need $184,000 in assets strikes nerve
- Pensions scandal among woes that pushed Abe to resign in 2007
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Japan’s pension system has been a worry for decades and fresh concern erupted at a tenuous time for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, just weeks before national elections for parliament’s upper house.
A report published June 3 on the Financial Services Agency’s website pointed to serious shortfalls, saying a couple in their sixties retiring on a pension would need a nest egg of up to 20 million yen ($184,000) to help cover living expenses. Opposition parties seized on the renewed unease, trying to leverage the rapidly aging country’s creaking pension system to dent Abe’s majority in the election.