Tie protection for old age, illness, and job loss to each worker, not to the workplace
Steps to make it happen
- Today, people who stay at one company for many years get the strongest protection for illness and old age.
- Every worker, in any kind of job, has one personal record of protection that belongs only to them.
- Companies, app operators, and people who hire workers add a little to the record, in line with the money they pay.
- Even if a person holds several jobs or changes jobs, the record never disappears and keeps growing.
- When people cannot work because they are raising children or caring for family, public tax money adds a basic minimum amount.
- When people work abroad, agreements between countries let them carry their records with them.
- Changing how you work no longer makes worries about illness or old age grow.
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The proposal in detail
This proposal sets out a principle: the basic protections that support daily life should be tied directly to each person who works, not to whether they belong to a particular employer. These protections include pensions, medical care and income support when someone is sick or injured, compensation for accidents at work, benefits when someone loses a job, and income while someone is away from work for childbirth or child care. The principle covers not only company employees but also people on short contracts, people who get work through apps, people who run their own businesses, and people who hold several jobs at once. At the center of the system is one record per person. Wherever the person works, and even if the way they work changes, what they have built up keeps being added to without a break. The cost is shared by those who pay for the work, meaning employers, businesses that connect workers with jobs, and clients who hire someone directly, each in proportion to the amount they pay. The worker also pays according to their income. Where there are many small payments, the plan assumes that the business that connects workers with jobs would collect and pay them in a lump. For people with almost no income, and for people who cannot work because of child care or caring for family, tax money would fill in a basic minimum so that no one falls below a certain level of protection. Extra benefits that companies have long offered on their own may continue on top of this foundation. For people who work across borders, the aim is for countries to make agreements so that the time a person has worked can be added together.
BenefitsChoosing how you work no longer creates big gaps in protection
The biggest benefit is that, whatever kind of work a person chooses, big gaps in protection against illness, old age, and job loss become less likely. People on short contracts, people who work through apps, and people who run their own businesses, who have often been left outside the system, can stand on the same foundation. Because protection is no longer tied to an employer, there is less reason to hesitate before moving to a job that fits better, trying a new business, or leaving work for a while to learn new skills, so people can move more easily to places where they can use their strengths. The loophole is also closed in which an employer avoids paying insurance fees just by changing the form of the contract, so companies that hire people honestly are less likely to lose out. Because time spent raising children or caring for family also counts toward protection, the unpaid care that women have mainly carried is less likely to lead to poverty in old age. When the savings of people who work across borders no longer vanish, the lives of workers who move to other countries become more stable too. In an age when automation keeps changing jobs, this is expected to work as a social foundation that can absorb change.
DrawbacksEmployers feel less responsible, and costs and effort rise
What worries opponents most is that the responsibility employers have carried toward workers could become thinner. Once protection is separated from the workplace, companies might think, "We are already paying the insurance fees," and take less seriously the work of making safe workplaces, trying to keep people employed for a long time, and talking with workers. Labor unions, which have won generous benefits for particular workplaces through bargaining, might also lose strength. There is also a concern that, in the process of creating a common foundation for everyone, today's generous systems could be cut down to the average. On cost, small businesses, clients, and businesses that connect workers with jobs, which have not paid before, would face new burdens, and this could lead to higher prices for work and fewer requests for it. In regions where much work is done without formal contracts, it is hard even to find out who paid how much, so the cost of building the record system would be large. Recording each person's income in detail also raises fears that personal information would be gathered in one place and that people would be watched. Agreements between countries also take time, so it must be kept in mind that they would be hard to achieve quickly.
Learn the background
Most social security systems today were built on the idea that people work full time for one employer for a long time. Because the employer pays the insurance fees and handles the paperwork, people hired as regular employees get stronger protection, while others get thin protection or none at all. Meanwhile, around the world, short contracts, work through apps, independent contracting, and holding several jobs at once are spreading. In many regions, people who work without a formal employment contract already make up a large share of all workers, and quite a few of them have no protection for illness or old age. In an age when automation and AI quickly change what jobs involve, people are expected to change jobs and ways of working even more often. In addition, people who work across borders can lose what they have built up each time they move to another country. When a major epidemic struck, those outside the system were the ones who lost income and could not even take time off, and this weakness became plain to see. The way we prepare for hard times has not kept up with how varied work has become.
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This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-15d) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes