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The story
Starting in October, prices on more than 3,000 food and beverage items will rise, while beer gets a tax cut and heated tobacco products get a tax hike as part of revisions to the liquor tax law. That same month, the social insurance “¥1.06 million wall” will also be abolished — a bundle of household-affecting changes all landing at once. On 5ch, opinions split between blaming the government’s economic policy for the price hikes and pointing to structural factors like wages and interest rates, with some suspecting opportunistic price gouging and others defending the increases as justified by soaring raw material costs.
Sat, Sep 26, 4:39 PM JST
Kyodo News
Prices and systems closely tied to daily life will change starting in October. The wave of price hikes on food and beverages continues, with more than 3,000 items expected to rise in price, while heated tobacco products will be hit by a tax increase. As inflation keeps climbing, the burden on household budgets looks set to grow heavier. Meanwhile, beer will get a tax cut under the revised liquor tax law, and the expansion of social insurance coverage will abolish the “¥1.06 million wall.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Someone's a pessimist
Back in the day there was even a story about eating rice while just looking at a photo of sukiyaki.
But watching how agricultural policy has moved these past few years,
I can't help but think we won't even be able to afford rice.
If it comes to that, expired cat food might be next.
A tiny chocolate bar for 200 yen? That's a joke.
If wages just went up, rising prices wouldn't be a problem at all.
The reason real wages aren't rising at companies serving Japan's domestic market is that more and more people now depend on social security (taxes) for their livelihood.
When you hand money to people like pensioners or welfare recipients who rely on social security and don't grow their income through economic activity, they try to stretch that money by buying the cheapest goods available.
Trading companies then chase that demand by importing cheaper substitutes from third countries, and the Japanese market fills up with cheaper goods.
Domestic-facing manufacturers respond to that demand by holding down employee wages instead of passing on the rising cost of imported raw materials.
For Japan to raise real wages, the only way is to cut pensions and welfare payments for people under 80 and get those who are healthy enough to work, but aren't, actually working.
Completely wrong. Just raise the minimum wage to 1,500 yen and be done with it.
Why stop at 1,500? Make it 10,000 — we're in an inflation, after all.
Do that and a wave of garbage companies would go bankrupt in a short span, flooding the streets with the unemployed. The ruling party is too scared of a drop in approval ratings to pull that trigger, so instead we get these slow, creeping raises.
Go ahead and savor the fruits of Abenomics to the fullest.
You can't survive on morals alone.
Of course it is — this is the "Takaichi Shock," after all. (market jitters tied to Sanae Takaichi's rise)
Domestic alcohol: taxed when it leaves the manufacturing site — a factory or brewery (at the point of shipment).
Imported alcohol: taxed when it's cleared out of a customs bonded area.
Who actually pays: the maker (manufacturer) or the importer — retailers and consumers don't pay the government directly.
It's a tax on businesses.
Wait a second…
Isn't that basically the same as the consumption tax, which is really just a sales tax wearing a fake name???
A good taxpayer is an addict, after all.
Sounds like the same setup as Re: #69.
Consumers aren't even part of the equation.
It's just a straight price hike.
If a country's in hyperinflation, it can't even export, can it?
That's the kind of nonsensical sophistry Yoichi Takahashi (a prominent economist) would spout — "a weak yen impoverishes our neighbors while Japan's economy thrives." It's Japan that's getting impoverished here.
FY2026 "wage hikes": implemented by 83.2% of companies, with raises of 5% or more — small and mid-sized businesses outpacing big corporations
https://www.tsr-net.co.jp/data/detail/1203140_1527.html
https://image-tm.s2mr.jp/i/original/1790428572247.jpeg
https://image-tm.s2mr.jp/i/original/1790428584199.jpeg
The media loves splashing headlines about price hikes and shortages, stirring up chaos and loving every minute of it, but when packaged rice that went up because of soaring rice prices gets cheaper again as rice prices fall, they never report on that at all.
It's not just labor costs — food, energy, benefits, and social insurance are all shooting up too, for reasons beyond plain inflation, so it's probably not that simple, is it? If companies actually believed the outlook ten years from now looked bright, maybe the big players would do it too.
Plus it drives up medical costs from obesity.
Why would that mean a tax cut, lol
Ordinary people commit crimes too, so does that mean an unprecedented tax hike is only natural? Isn't tax not supposed to be a punishment?
Now, if a pack of eggs became a standard 500 yen, sure, I'd totally get the "life is hard" complaint.
Coffee and chocolate are up at a level that's no joke.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
The beer tax cut marks the final stage of a three-phase revision to the liquor tax law that began in 2020 (unifying tax rates across beer-type beverages) — it isn’t a one-off favor from the current government. Since liquor tax is levied on manufacturers and importers rather than retailers or consumers, how much of that cut or hike actually gets passed on to shelf prices depends on each company’s own pricing strategy, as commenters in the thread pointed out. The abolition of the “¥1.06 million wall” is likewise based on pension system reforms passed in 2025 — a separate institutional change that simply happens to land in the same October as this wave of price hikes. Opinion in the thread split between those pinning the price hikes mainly on government and LDP policy and those pointing to structural factors like wages and interest rates, with voices suspecting opportunistic gouging coexisting alongside those defending the hikes as justified by soaring raw material and energy costs. The number of items and the tax mechanism follow the original source article as reported; it’s worth noting that the validity of any individual price increase hasn’t been rigorously verified here.
*This article was compiled by excerpting and summarizing the 5ch (News Express+) thread “[Price Hike Rush] Food and Beverage Prices Keep Rising in October — Over 3,000 Items, Beer Tax Cut.”
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