The insurance editor will help you answer your questions. For more questions, you can answer them online.

Read this article!

Economic Observer Network Wei Yingjie/Text To be honest, I still don’t know how much pension I pay every month and how much I can get when I retire. After all, it is still early to retire, and the variables are too great. Worrying at this time is in vain.

But for people who have already or are about to start receiving pensions, this is a problem they have to face. In particular, due to factors such as rising prices in recent years, whether pensions can be adjusted accordingly has become a matter of concern to many people. Recently, the State Council decided to continue to increase the basic pension level for enterprise retirees. The increase will be determined by 10% of the per capita monthly basic pension for enterprise retirees in 2012. After the plan is finalized, this will be the ninth consecutive year that the country has significantly adjusted the basic pension levels for enterprise retirees.

Logically speaking, this should be regarded as good governance. It's not easy to do this. As we all know, due to various reasons, China's pension funds have suffered huge deficits. According to statistics, in 2011, the personal book deficit of national pension funds was as high as 2 trillion yuan. On the one hand, the income cannot meet the expenditure, and on the other hand, the basic pension level must be continuously raised according to the social development situation. This seems like trying to make a fool of oneself. If this continues, if no measures are taken, the deficit will only get worse.

This did not seem to receive the applause expected. A retired professional employee in Beijing said that when he retired in 2004, his pension was about 1,200 yuan, and now it has almost doubled. "But to be honest, I still feel a little uneasy. What if it doesn't increase next year?" Although pensions are increasing every year, many people are still worried. What does this mean?

For retired people, it is of course best for pensions to increase every year. What's more, according to the current price level, if it doesn't rise, it means it will fall. But the bigger worry for this group of people may not be here, but that they don’t know what will happen next year if their pensions increase this year. This actually means a lack of confidence in the current pension system. The reasons here are, on the one hand, as reported, there is a lack of a normal adjustment mechanism on whether and how pensions will increase; on the other hand, pension accounts are in deficit all year round, which makes people feel insecure.

In the final analysis, people’s concerns about pensions are a lack of confidence in the government. The pension has been in deficit for so many years, and it is definitely not possible to live in such a tight schedule. However, the government has not seen any effective remedial measures taken. Looking at it this way, it is inevitable that people think that this is a monk ringing a bell every day. But what should I do if the bell can no longer ring? This is something people have to consider. At present, this deficit is getting bigger and bigger, and some places are showing signs of being unable to withstand it. For example, some places have begun to take loans from banks to pay for social security. When the system itself is in turmoil, giving a piece of candy will obviously not provide any comfort.

Some economists predict that by 2013, China’s pension gap will reach 18.3 trillion yuan. However, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security predicts that by 2025, China’s urban pension gap will only be 6 trillion yuan. No matter which data it is, it shows that the pension system is bound to face sustainable difficulties. Who will ultimately pay for this gap is one thing, but keeping it hanging in the air will only make everyone nervous. This is like a time bomb, and the bad thing is that no one knows when it will explode. In this context, no matter how much the pension increases in a year, it will only treat the symptoms rather than the root cause at best.

The prerequisite for the pension system to be maintained is confidence. If there is no confidence, who is willing to deposit today’s money into an account and collect it when they are old? So, whatever remedial measures are taken, the top priority is to make people see confidence. The key to making people see confidence is to improve the government's credibility and make people feel reassured about the system.