Japan Press Weekly

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2013 October 2 - 8 [WELFARE]

Largest-ever number of households lives on welfare

The Welfare Ministry announced on October 2 that the number of households receiving welfare benefits in July became the largest ever, indicating increasing poverty under the Abe Cabinet’s economic policy.

The number was 1,588,521, up by 5,213 from the previous month.

Recipients of livelihood protection benefits have increased especially among elderly citizens amounting to 45% of all recipients, or 715,072, are households of 65 years old and older.

The total number of households living on welfare programs also includes 181,006 households of the disabled and 111,448 mother-children households.

The Abe Cabinet launched a series of cuts in livelihood protection standards as high as 10% in August and cuts in yearly pension benefits as high as 20,000 yen this month. It also plans to submit to the upcoming extraordinary Diet session a bill to adversely revise the livelihood protection law in order to make it difficult for citizens to apply for public assistance.

About 10,000 welfare benefit recipients have filed complaints against the reduction in payments to local authorities throughout the nation.

Past related article:
> Welfare recipients nationwide file complaints against cuts in benefits [September 18, 2013]