A private advisory panel to Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has proposed that the government force better-off retirees to pay into social security again to prevent the system from collapsing and to ease the growing burden on younger, working people.
It also urged the continued use of national insurance premiums to fund the social security system, despite recent calls from some quarters for more consumption tax revenues to be used or the creation of a special-purpose tax instead.
The proposals are the basis of a full report to be submitted in late October.