Japan Press Weekly

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2012 April 11 - 17 [WELFARE]

To aggravate welfare system further increases poverty

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

The Noda Cabinet is attempting to promote an adverse revision of the livelihood protection system for needy citizens, which was included in its “integrated reform” of social services and the tax system.

Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko on April 9 ordered the Cabinet Secretariat’s National Policy Unit to compile a “livelihood support strategy” by this fall. The key agenda of the strategy is to limit citizens’ further “flow in” and encourage their “flow out” of the welfare system. In other words, it is brazenly attempting to decrease the number of citizens who are receiving welfare benefits in order to cut the nation’s welfare-related expenditures.

The government must not adversely revise the social welfare system in order to kick people in need of assistance out of the benefit program they have been entitled to.

As of January 2012, the number of welfare benefit recipients exceeded 2.09 million, reaching a record high. In addition to the prolonged severe recession, an increase in the number of unemployed and in non-regular jobs as well as the weakening of the public pension system have accelerated the expansion of poverty nationwide.

This situation puts more importance on the role of the livelihood protection system, which is often regarded as the safety net of last resort to ensure the livelihoods of those who have lost their source of income. Only 15% of households living under the livelihood protection standards are actually receiving welfare benefits. The government must urgently take measures to drastically increase the rate.

Not only the ruling Democratic Party of Japan but also the largest opposition party, the Liberal Democratic Party, calls for the welfare system to be adversely revised and the livelihood protection standards to be lowered by 10%. It is absolutely unconscionable for the two major parties to compete with each other in policies to destroy the social security system.

Along with the task to improve the livelihood protection system, what is most needed is to make efforts to reduce poverty. Welfare benefits should be more accessible to the public in order to guarantee their right to “maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living” as guaranteed in the Constitution.