Q: Now that I've retired / stopped working, should I keep paying labor insurance and national pension?

In 30 seconds: Decide everything on return on investment. Taiwan’s National Health Insurance is mandatory and you must pay it (it’s cheap). Labor insurance / national pension are an ROI call: if you have long tenure and a few more years earns you a lump sum, pay (James had paid 18 years at retirement; 7 more years to reach a payout “pencils out”); if tenure is thin and the payout is near 1:0 (early 30s, under 10 years of tenure) it’s a losing bet — don’t pay. No job means no labor insurance, which is normal — it’s insurance, not a tax, not mandatory; skipping it brings no legal problem or clawback. In the US, James also skips Medicare Part B (a few hundred USD/month) and self-insures, paying cash or getting care in Taiwan when needed — but for cancer and other poor-health cases, it’s decided differently.¹

Variants (how people actually ask)

“I’m semi-retired / retired — should I keep paying labor insurance?”
“I’m in my early 30s with under 10 years of tenure — does paying national pension / labor insurance pencil out?”
“Will skipping labor insurance / national pension cause legal trouble or a future clawback?”
“US Medicare Part B is a few hundred dollars a month — should I take it?”

One principle: run the ROI on all of it

James is consistent — social insurance is just another investment instrument; decide whether to pay by its return, not by sentiment or fear of “not having it later”:¹

Long tenure → pay. At retirement James had already paid 18 years of labor insurance; 7 more years earns a lump sum, and doing the math it “pencils out,” so he keeps paying. Likewise, a 60-year-old asking whether to pay national pension: “just pay it” — a few more years and the ROI is decent.
Thin tenure → don’t pay. In your early 30s with under 10 years of tenure (like the member “Braise” that day), the payout is near 1:0 — paying is a losing bet, so don’t. National pension is the same; skipping it is fine.

”Will skipping it cause trouble?” — No

One member worried the government might amend the law later, claw back unpaid contributions, and leave a black mark on their record. James corrected this directly: labor insurance / national pension are insurance, not taxes, and not mandatory. “No job means no labor insurance — that’s completely normal.” At most a clerk notifies you that national pension is unpaid; you simply don’t pay — “I don’t want your money, okay?” Only National Health Insurance is mandatory and it’s cheap. (This echoes the capitalist mindset in don’t sell your life for money: someone who truly gets CLEC — and will one day have a billion — won’t tie themselves down over a hundred thousand.)¹

US version: should I take Medicare Part B?

Same yardstick. Past a certain age James still declines Medicare Part B — a few hundred USD/month, which for him “is a matter of tens of millions, not a few hundred dollars” (opportunity cost). He’d rather self-insure: pay cash for care in the US when needed (every doctor has a cash price — just ask), or get self-paid checkups and care in Taiwan (cheaper, and Taiwan’s medicine is good). But this depends on health status: for high-risk people such as cancer patients, Part B does have benefits — take it if warranted. It’s the same case-by-case ROI-and-risk calculation.¹

Extension: lump sum or monthly? — it depends on the size of your assets

The same ROI ruler, applied to the payout end, flips with the size of your assets:²

Assets already in the hundreds of millions (NT$): take the lump sum. “Take that NT$2M (or NT$4M) out and put it in 00662 / 00670L, who cares — it makes no difference to you.”
Assets of only NT$10M: take it monthly. Taking NT$2M as a lump sum and investing it adds only about NT$40k of annual cash flow (at a 2% withdrawal); NT$20k a month is NT$240k a year — six times more.

“So the two aren’t the same — it depends on your assets.” The test isn’t a general “is it better to take it early or late,” it’s whether this money is a rounding error in your total assets or your main source of cash flow.

The original answer: it was already settled in 2021

The ROI test above is the 2026 write-up, but the concrete conclusions were given in early 2021, and more categorically:

National Pension: it isn’t compulsory, you can just stop paying. “Taiwan’s National Pension isn’t compulsory, so you don’t have to enroll — you can choose not to; if you’re enrolled you can suspend it, no problem. Your future annuity is just smaller — they won’t refuse to pay you. And the money you save you should be investing yourself.”³
James also read out the statutory basis: the National Pension Act uses “soft” compulsory enrollment, with no penalty for non-payment — you simply don’t get the coverage for the periods whose premiums and interest are unpaid.³
Labor Insurance: if you’ve retired, take the lump sum, don’t take it monthly. “If you’ve already retired from Taiwan’s Labor Insurance, take the lump sum right away”; “you should take the lump sum as soon as you can — don’t take it as an annuity.”⁴
The reason is the same ROI: “You don’t need to rely on the government — the government doesn’t make money. If the government made money, why would the labor pension fund need government top-ups? And it only guarantees 2%, 3% and still needs topping up — it can’t even earn 2 or 3%; over the long run that’s a pretty lousy investment.”⁴
In 2022, 00371 spends a whole session restating it: the labor pension fund performs poorly and pays little, life expectancy keeps rising, and relying on children no longer works → prepare retirement by investing yourself, don’t count on your kids or the government.⁵

⚠️ Note the tension with “it depends on your asset size” above: in 2021 the advice was a flat “always take the lump sum”; by 2025 (chat room 0001) the asset-size variable was added — for someone with only NT$10M, the monthly option produces six times the cash flow. The later version is the correction, and is this page’s current guidance: first ask whether this money is rounding error or your main cash flow.

Answer log

2022-09-27 (00371): A full session on retirement planning — the labor pension fund performs poorly, relying on children no longer works, don’t count on your kids or the government, fund retirement through your own long-term investing.⁵
2021-04-09 (00201): Take the Labor Insurance lump sum as soon as you can, don’t take the annuity; the reason is that the government doesn’t make money and the labor pension fund can’t even clear its guaranteed 2–3% without top-ups.⁴
2021-01-01 (00181): The earliest source of this page’s answer — National Pension is not compulsory, can be suspended, carries no penalty, and the savings should be invested yourself; if retired, take the Labor Insurance lump sum right away.³

🔎 Asked at least five times over five years (00181 → 00201 → 00371 → chat room 0001 → 00572), with the core test unchanged: run the ROI — the government’s guaranteed return is too low to be worth it. The only thing ever revised is lump sum vs monthly — a flat “take the lump sum” in 2021, changed after 2025 to depend on your asset size.

2025-07-31 (chat room 0001): a member asked whether to take NT$4M as a lump sum or NT$20k a month → it depends on asset size: hundreds of millions, take the lump sum and invest it; only NT$10M, take it monthly (NT$240k vs NT$40k of cash flow).²
2026-07-04 (00572): Member “Overseas Orphan” (34, just retired, under 10 years of tenure) asked whether he could skip labor insurance → thin tenure, 1:0, skipping is fine; national pension not needed either. SF noted health insurance is mandatory but suggested still paying labor/national pension (fearing future law changes) → James still argued for a pure ROI call: thin tenure doesn’t pencil out. Several US members asked about Medicare Part B → James skips it himself and self-insures, but cancer patients should take it.¹

⚠️ The benefit formulas, tenure thresholds, and tax rules for each social-insurance program change with policy; this page summarizes James’s spoken decision rule (judge by ROI and risk), not personalized financial or insurance advice — verify the latest labor-insurance / national-pension / Medicare rules yourself before acting.

CLEC James with several members, 長篇 00572 “Investor’s Declaration of Financial Independence,” 2026-07-04, labor/national pension @50:00–51:00, 1:10:00–1:16:30; Medicare Part B @1:14:30–1:15:30, 1:29:30–1:31:30, 1:40:00–1:44:30. Transcript in raw/transcripts/長篇/00572…; amounts are spoken approximations. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
CLEC James and a member, chat room 0001 “Investing in VTI, VT, SPY will also make you poor…,” 2025-07-31, lump sum vs monthly pension payout (decided by asset size) @2:23:30–2:24:30. Transcript: raw/transcripts/閒聊/0001…. Amounts are spoken examples. ↩ ↩²
CLEC James, 長篇 00181 “Tesla will keep rising; the bitcoin paradigm shift…”, 2021-01-01, National Pension is not compulsory and can be suspended, take the Labor Insurance lump sum @06:30; the National Pension Act’s “soft compulsory enrollment, no penalty” @35:30, @58:00. Transcript in raw/transcripts/長篇/00181…. The statutory description is as spoken in 2021 — verify against the current National Pension Act. ↩ ↩² ↩³
CLEC James, 長篇 00201 “40 years of US market returns: 1469×…”, 2021-04-09, take the Labor Insurance lump sum rather than the annuity @09:30, @29:30–30:00 (“the government doesn’t make money … it can’t even earn 2 or 3%”). Transcript in raw/transcripts/長篇/00201…. ↩ ↩² ↩³
CLEC James, 長篇 00371 “How to plan retirement well; counting on your children or the government vs long-term investing”, 2022-09-27, poor labor pension fund performance, relying on children no longer works @07:30–09:30. Transcript in raw/transcripts/長篇/00371…. ↩ ↩²