Japan Press Weekly

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2018 November 7 - 13 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

More older people living alone go on welfare due to economic difficulties triggered by Abe’s welfare cuts policy

A government survey found that an increasing number of elderly people living alone depend on welfare assistance. This suggests that the Abe government’s policy to cut social security services are pushing older citizens into poverty.

The Welfare Ministry on November 7 released the survey results on welfare benefit recipients which showed that 1.63 million households received welfare payments in August. Of them, 804,000 were households consisting of one person aged 65 or older, which is an increase of 18,670 from the same month last year.

Among the 1.63 welfare recipient households, 881,342 were elderly households (including both single-member and multiple-member ones), 412,621 were households of the disabled, 86,879 were single-mother households, and 248,920 were other types of households, such as unemployed.

The Abe government is cutting down on social security benefits for the elderly, such as public pension payments and financial support for medical and nursing care fees. The latest survey indicates that Abe’s policy is dealing a heavy blow to the general public, especially to the elderly who are economically vulnerable.

Past related articles:
> Number of welfare recipients with disabilities increases by 1.5 times in 10 years [July 8, 2018]
> One out of two working-age disabled people live on less than 90,000 yen a month [May 13, 2018]