Japan Shocked To Find Abenomics Is Destroying Its Middle Class

In central planner “mission accomplished” news, the wealth divide in Japan is growing under Abenomics and middle class citizens are at risk of falling into poverty, The Japan Times says. Despite nightly sound bites from Kuroda, Aso, and Abe himself designed to assuage fears that the country’s gargantuan monetary experiment may yet fail to pull Japan out the deflationary doldrums, some people are getting impatient as the number of households on welfare continues to rise as does the number of nonregular workers. This comes on the heels of the rather amusing news that the country’s Labor Ministry had fabricated a year’s worth of data on wage growth (it turns out there was none) and after countless warnings from us that the PM’s policies would end in spectacularly bad fashion (see here, here, and here for instance). Here’s more:

According to Akio Doteuchi, a senior researcher at the NLI Research Institute, what is threatening people here is that, under the current social structure, virtually anyone in the middle class is at risk of falling into poverty.

“It’s like walking in a mine field. Many risks lie ahead of you,” Doteuchi said. “Even if you are in the middle class, if something unexpected happens, you could slip into poverty.”

Such risks could include contracting diseases such as cancer and being unable to work, the failure to land a job soon after graduation, or an ill parent who needs looking after.

The big problem in Japan is that there are few social safety nets for such situations. In the past, workers had been shielded by the guarantee of lifetime employment at companies. When they retired, they were supported by family members, Doteuchi noted.

But now, there is an increasing number of nonregular workers, particularly younger ones, whose financial situations are unstable. More and more single-person households are vulnerable to serious health problems.

Data back this up. According to labor ministry figures announced April 1, the number of households living on welfare hit a record 1,618,817 in January. This figure has been on the rise for the last two decades.

The country’s relative poverty rate has also edged up over the last 30 years, especially with single mothers and fathers raising children, although the latest data are for 2012.