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One in six Japanese kids live below poverty line, amid rising defense budget: Report
Japan is one of the world’s most economically developed countries, but one in six Japanese children live in poverty—one of the worst rates in the industrialized world.
More than half a million single Japanese mothers live below the poverty line, earning less than $10,600 a year, while the defense budget for next year will likely hit an all-time high, exceeding 5 trillion yen ($40.2 billion) for the first time.
The cost of feeding all the poor kids in Japan would be about $1 billion per year, a tiny fraction of the country’s defense budget.
“Many working parents are paid wages that are so low, they can be categorized as working poor. The situation has become especially serious with parents who are in their 20s and 30s.” —Prof. Ryoichi Yamano, Chiba Meitoku College
“Last year, a 28-year-old mother and her 3-year-old child were found dead in a condo near Tokumaru’s previous workplace. They were presumed to have died 3 months earlier from starvation. A memo left by the mother apologized to the child for not being able to provide good food,” said a report.
In 2013, the mother had visited a local government office asking for welfare benefits, but she was turned down, according to the report.
The latest child poverty rate (2013) for children under 18 living in households earning ¥1.22 million, half of the median equivalent disposable income, was 16.3%, the highest ever recorded, said a report.
Japan’s relative poverty rate has been steadily increasing since mid-2000s. Today, it has climbed well above the OECD average.
Meanwhile, Japan has launched a new helicopter carrier, one of the country’s biggest warships since World War II.
Japan’s second largest naval vessel —the helicopter carrier “Kaga”—was launched at the Japan Marine United shipyard in Yokohama earlier this week.
The original vessel Kaga was an aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). It participated in the bombings of the ports of Shanghai and Nanjing in 1937, and later joined the naval group that attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
Kaga was sunk by the US navy in the Battle of Midway the following year, in June 1942.
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