Yen for Living

With the rapid aging of society it pays to pay attention to all the latest economic statistics regarding old people, and lately we’ve come across quite a few. Here are some new numbers about households in which the designated head-of-household is 65 or older, carried in the Asahi and Tokyo Shimbuns.

Keep on pushin’

• The average monthly income in 2011 was ¥185,000, which is about ¥3,000 less than the average in 2010.
• About 90% of total income is in the form of government and company pensions.
• Average spending is ¥221,000 month, meaning that the average household is ¥36,000 in the hole.
• However, in 2011 average savings for households when there are at least two people stood at ¥22.57 million. Savings among seniors has been increasing gradually since 2008, but the statistic may be misleading since it is heavily weighted toward upper income households newly entering the senior demographic. Median savings is ¥14.6 million.
• 5.44 million people over the age of 64 worked in 2011, which represents 27.6 percent of the nation’s population over that age; 46 percent of men and 26 percent of women between the ages of 65 and 69 worked.
• Total number of people over 64 exceeded 30 million in 2011, with 50,000 over the age of 100.
• As reference, in 2005, when the number of elderly was slightly over 26 million, about 2.2 percent were collecting welfare. The average monthly welfare payment for two-person elderly households in Tokyo was ¥122,000 and for outside of Tokyo ¥94,500. About 47 percent of elderly who received welfare also received some sort of government pension, at an average of ¥46,000 a month.

Let's share

It’s 10 a.m. Do you know where your grandmother is?

In July, the Bank of Japan released the results of its quarterly tankan survey of business sentiment for April-June. The most notable, and hardly surprising, result was the drop in confidence among major manufacturers. Less was said about the fact that domestic demand and individual consumption appear to be stabilizing. The numbers get even more encouraging when you look at specific industries.

In the tankan, an index of “0″ means no change in sentiment, with minus numbers indicating a loss of confidence and positive numbers a gain in confidence. The index for hotels and restaurants was +3, the first positive rise in five years, and a substantial one. Even more impressive was the index for “individual services,” such as travel agents, a category launched in 2004. The most recent tankan showed an index of +25. These numbers are at once heartening and baffling. Average income did not rise during the same period, which means consumption shouldn’t have risen, so why the increase in confidence?

The report’s authors credit these hopeful signs to people over 60, and smaller businesses’ resourcefulness in tapping this demographic. A recent article in Tokyo Shimbun profiled an izakaya (drinking establishment) chain called Hokkaido, which has an outlet in Kokubunji, Tokyo, that offers a special hiru enkai (daytime party) plan: If each member of a party orders at least ¥3,500 in dishes, then the party can drink as much as they like without paying extra.

Continue reading about senior citizen consumers →

Let's share

The damage: bill for national health insurance

Last week, the Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare released the results of a survey of about 60,000 households regarding the government-run basic pension plan. The ministry found that about one-fourth of the people who are supposed to be paying into the plan had no income in 2009. In addition, 38 percent of participants made less than ¥500,000 for the year, and 54.7 percent made less than ¥1 million.

The basic pension, kokumin nenkin, is for people who don’t work for companies or organizations that contribute to their employees’ government-run pensions, meaning they are either self-employed, part-timers or unemployed (and not wives of salaried workers). In 2011 only 58.6 percent of people who were supposed to pay into the basic pension plan actually did. The obvious conclusion the ministry drew from these numbers is that the ranks of the poor are growing.

These findings are sobering, but one should keep in mind that while not paying one’s pension contributions certainly undermines the system it doesn’t affect the person in a direct way, since he or she does not benefit from those contribution until he or she is old. In any case, if a person can’t pay the monthly ¥14,980 basic pension contribution because he or she is unemployed, the person can apply for an exemption.

Continue reading about national health insurance →

Let's share

A major feature of the Democratic Party of Japan’s manifesto that helped make it the ruling party was its proposed overhaul of the social security system. One feature of the plan was to combine two types of pensions. Regular full-time employees usually pay into the kosei nenkin system if they work for a private company, or into the kyosai nenkin system if they work for a public entity. This latter group includes civil servants, whether they work for the central government or a local one, and school teachers, including instructors at private schools.

You're the only one who cares about your pension

However, there is a real difference in terms of both premiums and benefits between the two systems. Though in both cases, the employee splits his contributions with his employer, the rate is less for kyosai nenkin members than it is for kosei nenkin members. Even more significant, kyosai nenkin members after retirement receive ¥20,000-a-month more in benefits than do kosei nenkin members. And that’s not all. While the widows of both kosei nenkin and kyosai nenkin members can receive a special pension when they survive those members, under certain conditions other surviving family members of deceased kyosai nenkin members can also receive benefits. That does not apply to kosei nenkin members and their families.

The problem with the proposal to combine these two systems is that public servants will lose these special privileges. The kyosai nenkin system will adhere to the regulations associated with the kosei nenkin system, which is is why it hasn’t been discussed much during the current Diet session. The bureaucracy, needless to say, isn’t very fond of the proposal and is fighting it.

Another social security proposal from the manifesto that seems to have died on the vine is bringing more non-regular employees into the kosei nenkin system. At present, anyone who joins has to work at least 30 hours a week. Otherwise they have to pay into the kokumin nenkin, or regular pension, system. Forces in the DPJ were supposed to submit a bill during this session that would change the rules for kosei nenkin members to allow anyone who works more than 20 hours a week and has been in his or her position for at least six months to join. In this new system, a 45-year-old woman who makes ¥100,000 a month must pay a set premium of ¥15,000 a month into the basic pension system, but if she meets the conditions of the new system, she would join the kosei nenkin system and split the premium with her employer, which means she’d pay only ¥8,000 a month. At retirement, that amount would give her ¥500 a month more in benefits than the basic pension benefit for each year of payment. So if she paid into the system for 20 years, she’d get ¥10,000 more a month.

The main difference would be for “type 3″ members, meaning wives of kosei nenkin members. At present, type 3 members don’t have to pay anything, but under this proposed revision the housewife would have to pay ¥8,000 a month, just as the employed woman would; that is, if she decided to join.

It goes without saying that the main obstacle to implementing this plan is employers, who don’t want the extra burden of having to pay their part of kosei nenkin premiums. In any case, the government’s idea of a totally integrated social security overhaul that would result in a guaranteed minimum pension has been roundly criticized, so it seems even less likely that these two proposals, which wouldn’t really cost anything, have much of a chance. At present, the only thing the administration cares about is pushing an increase of the consumption tax.

Let's share

One of the original planks in the Democratic Party of Japan’s 2009 platform, or manifesto as it’s normally called, was an overhaul of social security. Acknowledging that the national pension system was irreparably broken, the DPJ proposed tossing the old pay-as-you-go “insurance” model and replacing it with a system that paid benefits completely out of tax revenues. Upon retirement, every qualified person would receive ¥70,000 a month until they died.

Spend it if you got it: pension passbook

With Kaoru Yosano assuming the position of fiscal and economic policy minister in the newly reshuffled cabinet, that proposal is all but doomed. Yosano, who is against ditching the premium system, filled a similar cabinet position under the last Liberal Democratic Party prime minister, Taro Aso, so it’s not likely he’s going to change his mind even while toiling for the DPJ. In fact, Prime Minister Naoto Kan implied only a few days ago that the social security plan in the manifesto is not realistic.

What he means is that it’s not realistic politically. Practically speaking, it’s certainly more realistic than the present system, which the welfare ministry favors because they think it’s more clearly ethical when it’s really anything but. To receive benefits after retirement, one has to pay into the system at least for 25 years. If you pay for only 24 years and 11 months, you get the same benefits as someone who paid nothing: ¥0. (In comparison, in order to qualify for minimum social security in the U.S., you have to pay SS tax for at least 40 quarters, or ten years)

Rather than overhaul a failed system, the welfare ministry continues to tweak it. Two weeks ago the government approved an ¥80 decrease in the monthly premiums people pay into the basic national pension (kokumin hoken), from ¥15,100 to ¥15,020. Though the drop seems hardly significant, the news of the drop is, since it is the first time since the social security system was launched in 1961 that premiums have been reduced. The reason for the cut is downward pressure on wages caused by deflation.

Continue reading about the Japanese pension system →

Let's share