No April Fool.
I follow the program, which maybe has about 350,000 members. (I saw 500,000 somewhere, but I think the number is more like 350,000.)
Japanese commenters suggested that the rate rise was going to be about 7%, but it turned out to be about 1.3%—at least for my age band next year.
The nice thing about contemporary browsers is that, whether or not you can read Japanese, you can always get a fairly good English translation.
The median age of a “Kikin” participant is about 49 years old. And the median being paid into the program is about enough to double the modest Kokumin Nenkin subsistence payment.
I expected the price of this program to drop, since the stock market was going gangbusters, and the Bank of Japan eliminated their negative interest policy. But I saw where the trustees said Japanese life expectancy is projected to continue to increase—unlike America, where it has been on the downtrend.
Hoofin 