Expert Staff Of The Ministry Of Finance: JHT Is A Absolute Thing That Workers Must Have In Old Age

Photo: Doc. BPJS Employment

JAKARTA - In a discussion at the Social Security Summit 2024, expert staff for state expenditure at the Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu) Sudarto said that social security is one way so that workers can feel decent living in their old age.

According to him, Old Age Security (JHT) is something that workers absolutely have when they are still actively working and earn income.

"We go through the life cycle, starting from school, after school, work, and after work. After work, we shouldn't worry, because there is social security," said Sudarto, quoted Thursday, November 28.

Sudarto encourages the need for an appropriate scheme to accelerate the expansion of BPJS Employment participation. The reason is, BPJS Employment active participants until October 2024 have only reached 40.83 million, of which the number of formal and informal workers is around 150 million.

"Even now, there are only around 14 million workers who take part in the pension guarantee, including JHT guarantees, around 16 million out of 140-145 million workers. This is our concern, don't let us and our friends retire once they get social assistance, what does that mean, weighing the state budget," he explained.

The same thing also caught the attention of I Gede Dewa Karma Wisana, a researcher at the Demographic Institute, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia (UI), emphasized the importance of dividends or income for old age.

Because, according to him, when workers enter the age of the elderly, the amount of expenditure will be much greater than income. So that JHT is an important solution so that they can still live a decent and sufficient life for workers even though they are no longer productive.

"We in demographics really care about the life cycle. We need to think about dividends, we need to prepare dividends from existing demographic bonuses," he said.

I Gede also encourages workers who are still productive and have income to prepare for old age, one of which is through JHT.

"So we plan to prepare a strategy so that the now productive population will not only have sufficient income and live a decent life, but be able to prepare old age. So, the consumption can be sufficient through income or income investment that they have collected when they were young today," he explained.

Head of the BPJamsostek Jakarta Cilincing Branch Office, Haryani Rotua Melasari, added that labor guarantees, including old age insurance, not only provide financial protection. But also a form of social investment that is able to improve the quality of life of the workforce, both during active and during retirement," he said

Therefore, Haryani also invites all parties, both workers and employers, to better understand and support the implementation of social security so that the benefits can be felt broadly and sustainably.