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The story
A salary thread on 5ch’s “Nandemo Jikkyo G” board sparked a divide over whether a 45-year-old earning 6 million yen a year counts as a winner or as clueless about the real world. It kicked off with a post claiming “there’s no way you hit 10 million unless you’re a company president,” which drew a wave of pushback from posters claiming to work at major corporations or Nikkei 225-listed firms, saying they’d cleared 10 million yen in their 30s. Meanwhile, the claim that “Tokyo’s average income is over 7 million yen” was met with counters arguing you should look at the median, not the average — turning the thread into a debate over how to even read the statistics. Differences between rural and urban areas, and between big corporations and small-to-midsize firms, only made things messier.
What people said
Guess the Ice Age generation's brains froze along with their job prospects (a jab at Japan's "employment ice age" generation, who graduated into the long post-bubble recession).
That's a winning electrician, not a normal one.
Averages don't mean much for numbers like this.
At least give us the median.
Well, Tokyo's average only counts the cream of the crop among people working in Tokyo.
The lower earners live out in the three surrounding prefectures.
Nice try, hater.
There's no way you hit 10 million unless you're a company president.
Outside Tokyo, knock off a million from each.
Outside Tokyo it'd be -1M, -2M, -3M respectively.
18 million yen is just a normal salary there.
6 million yen is dirt poor, apparently you can't even live on that.
Of course, the cost of living is way different there.
That just proves you don't know statistics — total boomerang.
I said salarymen, not laborers in general, you know?
When I hear "salaryman" I think of wage earners in general, not specifically white-collar workers.
I always bump mine up 1.5x and say I'm married.
I'm a NEET, but on NanG I claim a 15 million yen income.
Everyone's probably doing the same thing.
Patting each other on the back over your own miserable-life standards isn't exactly productive.
We're talking about guys who are married with kids.
Can't speak for the house part though.
Exactly this.
I'm at a Nippon Steel subsidiary and I'm on 12 million in my 30s.
Guys at small companies or bottom-rung jobs won't get it, but that's reality.
That's setting the bar way too low.
Only about 5 hours of overtime a month too.
And I'm still stuck at Grade 2 (a low civil-service pay rank), and this is what I get.
Way too much of a winner, lol.
If you can earn more, go ahead and prove it lol
Made 11 million last year, sorry about that lol
What? Are you a company president or something?
Show us your withholding tax slip.
Rent's gone up so much that with a comfortable budget of around 110,000 yen, the best you can get is a 1K with a single 6-tatami room (roughly 10 sqm)…
If you're not making 10 million in Tokyo, what's even the point of working there?
Regular employee at a Nikkei 225 company.
Re: #41
No reason to risk getting doxxed.
Assume it's a lie if you want, go ahead.
But if you actually work at a big company yourself, it's obvious who's right here.
There's no way a withholding tax slip would get you doxxed lmao
The format alone gives away exactly which company you work for.
This guy's clearly never changed jobs in his life.
And most of those are guys in their 50s with management titles.
At a major Nikkei company, a manager in their 50s would probably hit around 15 million.
If I worked at the parent company, hitting 10 million in my 30s would probably be a breeze.
Big-company subsidiaries get rough later on.
Staff seconded from HQ hog all the management positions, so it's hard to get promoted.
Even doing the same job, the seconded staff make about 1.5x more too. 😢
I work harder than anyone, take on all the risk, and this is all I get for it.
I've got just over 30 employees.
If there's any young person reading this, let me tell you something.
Study hard, seriously, and get into a big company.
Well, for employees, salary comes down to where you belong, not what you can actually do.
You can buy whatever you want and eat and drink on the company card though.
Presidents treat me all the time for work socializing, you know? Better pay than me at my big corporation.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
According to the National Tax Agency’s Statistical Survey of Actual Status for Salary in the Private Sector, the average salary for all wage earners nationwide falls short of 5 million yen. A 6 million yen income at 45 isn’t low by the national average alone, but in the thread, the more posters narrowed things down to “Tokyo,” “big corporations,” or “Nikkei 225,” the higher the numbers jumped — and that gap became the spark for the conflict. There were broadly two points of contention. One was a disagreement over how to read statistics — whether to use the average or the median as the benchmark (replies 9, 12, 16). The other was how far it’s fair to generalize differences based on company size or region as “normal.” Several posters cited themselves as examples working at major corporations to push back on “you can’t hit 10 million unless you’re a president,” but out of concern for being identified, no proof was ever offered, so the truth of these claims can’t be confirmed. Income threads also come with the usual 5ch caveat that self-reported numbers tend to get exaggerated, so it’s best to take any of these figures with a grain of salt.
※This article is an excerpt and summary based on the 5ch (“Nandemo Jikkyo G”) thread “The public says “6 million at 45 is a winner,” “Calling that a loser is way too out of touch,” “There’s no way you hit 10 million unless you’re a president lol”.”
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