Japan Press Weekly

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2014 December 24 - 2015 January 6 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Painful cuts in social welfare spending

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

The government, led by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, repeatedly expresses its intention to drastically reduce social welfare spending in fiscal 2015 without “exception”.

An increase in pension, medical, and nursing-care spending associated with a rapidly aging population is perfectly natural, but the Financial Ministry urges the Abe administration to halve the increase. The ministry cites medical and nursing-care programs, livelihood protection assistance, welfare services for the disabled, and pension benefit payments as items that could be subject to budget cuts.

Social welfare spending in Japan accounts for about 20% of GDP, lower than that of industrialized countries in Europe. In short, Japan uses less money for social welfare despite having more elderly people. Merciless cuts in social welfare spending will impair the functioning of the Japanese social security system.

Soon after the general election, representatives of the business community met with Prime Minister Abe and said, “Only the Abe government can enforce policies painful for some people.” Reportedly, Abe reacted very positively to this. Many people are already suffering from the pains caused by the Abenomics economic policy and the consumption tax hike.

The Abe government says that it will certainly give tax breaks to large corporations in fiscal 2015. It also seeks to increase the military budget. The government obsessively blames rising welfare expenditures for the present fiscal crisis, but cuts in corporate taxes and an increased budget for military spending are the very “exceptions” that should be cut into.