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The story
According to the Private Sector Salary Survey released by the National Tax Agency on September 29, the average annual salary among 51.63 million salaried workers who worked continuously throughout fiscal 2025 (Reiwa 7) was ¥4.87 million. However, the largest bracket sits below that average: the ¥3-4 million range, with 7.99 million people, or 15.5% of the total. On 5channel, the gap between this breakdown and claims that “I heard the average was around ¥7 million” became a talking point, along with the income gaps between regular employees, non-regular workers, the self-employed, and company executives — and posters ended up comparing their own salaries with each other.
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What does the annual salary breakdown look like? The biggest group, at 15.5%, is in the ¥3 million range
The survey covers 51.63 million “salaried workers employed throughout the year” — those who worked continuously from January through December of fiscal 2025. Their average salary is ¥4.87 million, but the bracket with the largest number of people isn’t at that average.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
That's because the National Personnel Authority survey (used to benchmark civil servant pay) only covers large corporations.
Because that stat only counts large companies.
That doesn't mean the money actually piles up, though.
I make ¥16 million a year and totally get it.
Feel that.
I make ¥25 million and yeah, same feeling.
Re: #190
Lol, a salary-flexing contest breaking out on a weekday afternoon.
Guess I'll throw in my ¥30 million then lol
And they call this the longest economic boom ever, with insane price hikes and a tax burden so heavy it's basically "50% to the government, 50% to you" (a reference to the old feudal peasant tax rate).
Maybe that's groundwork for a rate hike…
Gasoline subsidies plus an ultra-low birthrate society make the leading economic index easy to push up.
That tax burden rate is just calculated from income.
Consumption tax, gasoline tax, and the rest get taken on top of that, so it doesn't stop at 50%.
You can't really spend money after work or on your days off, right?
Probably married, right? (With the husband as the main breadwinner)
That's basically what life looks like in a developing country. And that's the biggest income bracket there is.
5channel built its whole identity on the "whoever works, loses" mentality.
Here comes the "NISA-poor" guy (someone who scrimps on living expenses to max out their tax-free investment account).
That's doable if you're still living with your parents.
Regular employees: ¥6.23 million
Non-regular: ¥2.70 million
Women
Regular employees: ¥4.44 million
Non-regular: ¥1.79 million
90% of executives are men, and that pulls up the average for male regular employees too — that's part of why the gender gap looks the way it does.
Executive pay is on a completely different level, so it drags the whole average up with it.
Executives are included in the overall figure, but they're excluded from both the "regular employee" and "non-regular employee" breakdowns.
The number for male regular employees is the average for ordinary male regular employees who aren't executives.
They should only count full-time workers in this stat.
A lot of that is small-scale farmers out in the countryside lol
Nice try though.
Small-scale farmers probably aren't incorporated, so wouldn't their income not count as salary income?
But if farming alone can't pay the bills and they're also working a part-time job, that part-time pay would count as salary income.
If that's what you mean, then that group might be the under-¥2 million part-timers.
This is salary income we're talking about.
If they're working full-time, wouldn't that be illegal (i.e., below minimum wage)?
Where does it say that?
It's clearly stated in the survey report that executives are broken out separately.
For reference, here are the latest figures for executives, regular employees, and non-regular workers:
【Executives】
Overall average: ¥7.86 million
Male average: ¥9.00 million
Female average: ¥4.97 million
【Regular employees】
Overall average: ¥5.59 million
Male average: ¥6.23 million
Female average: ¥4.43 million
【Non-regular】
Overall average: ¥2.09 million
Male average: ¥2.69 million
Female average: ¥1.79 million
Background and Key Points
These figures come from the National Tax Agency’s Private Sector Salary Survey, covering 51.63 million salaried workers employed throughout the year. Against an average of ¥4.87 million, the largest bracket actually sits below that, in the ¥3 million range — a reminder that the average alone can be misleading about the real picture. The thread’s claims that “the government said the average was ¥7 million” appear to stem from mixing up figures that cover different populations, such as civil-servant pay surveys or statistics weighted toward large corporations. It’s also worth noting that conflating the overall average — which includes executive compensation — with the separate averages for regular and non-regular employees can obscure what’s really driving the gap between men’s and women’s earnings.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (News Express+) thread “Distribution of 51.63 Million Salaried Workers Released by the National Tax Agency on September 29 — Largest Bracket Is the 7.99 Million People Earning ¥3-4 Million.”
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