life

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

One out of every 4 households has no savings at all

Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro said that he finds nothing wrong with social disparities. But disparities keep growing, with an increasing number of households without any savings.

In the Cabinet Office's preliminary report on household savings for FY 2004, the savings ratio is 2.8 percent, the lowest since 1980. The percentage of the number of households without savings is 23.8 percent, the highest ever. The percentage of households without savings is 40 percent among single-member households.

The biggest reason for the declining savings rate is the decrease in income, as seen in the declining employee compensation since 1997. Under the Koizumi policy of forcing working people to pay more in taxes while cutting back on social services, households are forced to withdraw their savings to manage with reduced take-home pay against the pegged expenditure level.

Tokushige Masashi, a professor at Chuo University, said, "The economy is structured so that money is siphoned from households and poured into corporations. The low-interest rate policy of the government is an enormous help to rob households of their savings in order to profit major banks and large corporations."
- Akahata, February 5, 2006