From our other sites
The story
On October 29, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced that from December through next February, the government will subsidize electricity and gas bills, cutting the burden on a standard household by about ¥7,000 over the three months. At the same time, it emerged that subsidies for gasoline and other fuel oils would be scaled back, with the benchmark price raised by ¥5 every month starting in December. On 5ch threads, voices welcoming the relief on electricity bills crossed with concerns that rising fuel prices — including kerosene and diesel — would hit logistics and farming costs, sparking further debate over the scale of the funding and Japan’s reliance on cars.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on the 29th that the government will subsidize electricity and gas bills from December through next February. For a standard household, this should deliver “a reduction of around ¥7,000 over the three months,” she told reporters at the prime minister’s office. She said subsidies that hold down gasoline prices would be scaled back starting in December.
Full story at the source — Last updated: Thu, Oct 29, 19:55
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
They need to make gasoline cheaper, or every citizen is going to suffer.
Folks in snow country feel this one.
They call it a "gasoline subsidy," but
kerosene and diesel get the exact same yen-per-liter subsidy as gasoline.
So the effective subsidy rate on kerosene is actually higher.
Apparently it currently works out to about ¥15,000 per person per month —
¥180,000 a year — in gasoline subsidies.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced on the 29th that, regarding subsidies for gasoline and other fuel oils, the benchmark price will be raised by ¥5 each month starting in December.
https://www.jiji.com/sp/article?k=2026102901074&g=pol
¥5 every month — so by next year that's a ¥60 increase?
Transport costs get tacked on at every stage — production → processing → wholesale → retail — so it keeps stacking.
Guess by New Year we'll get the usual "price hikes on X,000 items" announcement.
This time it'll be brutal since the October minimum wage bump stacks on top too.
It's not just gasoline going up —
diesel, kerosene, heavy fuel oil, jet fuel too.
It's not just logistics either, farm produce gets pricier too,
especially for anyone running a boiler (e.g. for greenhouse heating).
Fertilizer already doubled since imports from Russia dried up.
Subsidy overview / payout rates (from Oct 29, 2026):
• Eligible fuel types and payout rates:
• Gasoline: ¥52.4/L (breakdown: ¥45.2 variable + ¥7.2 adjustment)
• Diesel: ¥52.4/L
• Kerosene/heavy fuel oil: ¥52.4/L
• Jet fuel: ¥41.9/L
Soaring fertilizer costs spill into a food crisis — prices more than double as the invasion disrupts supply
Global fertilizer prices are surging seriously. Supply from major producers Russia and Belarus, both under sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine, has been disrupted, pushing a leading price index up more than twofold in a year.
Jealous (lit. "裏山鹿," a kanji pun on "urayamashii").
Mine's mostly electric in winter and it tops ¥30,000 a month.
The bottom-rung folks are gonna die——!!
Fuel for fishing boats,
fuel for greenhouse farming —
those are skyrocketing too, among others.
I think we have to accept some degree of inflation.
But raising gasoline ¥5 every single month feels way too fast.
Once ¥200 a liter comes into view, more people will start hesitating to spend, and we could fall into a negative spiral where the economy gets worse because of it.
Maybe they should ease the pace once it starts closing in on ¥200.
I used to use a fan heater — is AC actually the better option?
Layering clothes is the cheapest way to go.
Nobody's actually ventilating once an hour with a fan heater, right?
I barely ventilated at all at my place (though I do have 24-hour automatic ventilation).
Since I quit using the fan heater, I've gotten sick less.
My throat doesn't get wrecked anymore, and I stopped catching the flu too.
Switching from
AC + fan heater
to
AC + electric heater
made my electric bill go up,
but even so — maybe thanks to good insulation — even running 5 AC units (one of which I barely use now), my electric bill is just a bit over ¥10,000.
The biggest cost seemed to be the electric bathroom heater.
Back when my oldest son lived at home and ran it like a mist sauna, that alone hit ¥20,000.
It never even occurs to those people to cut back on driving their own cars.
Since when was "curbing personal car use" even the goal here?
Your whole premise is off.
If they own a car in the first place, they've got some money to spare.
Even a ¥30/liter hike only adds up to ¥3,000 a month at 100L.
Luxury car owners hate racking up mileage on their cars, so in total gasoline usage they actually burn less than ordinary folks commuting by car.
Boy racers too (珍走, slang for reckless street-racing hoons).
I'm out in the countryside, so they're still around here.
Maybe they gave up because crude prices are stuck high, but I don't get why electricity and gas get subsidized instead.
Probably simply because it's gotten too expensive.
Fuel subsidies since 2021 total ¥10 trillion.
Not sure when it started, but electricity/gas subsidies add up to ¥5 trillion cumulative too.
[Exclusive] Cumulative budget for gasoline and other fuel-oil subsidies tops ¥10 trillion — cabinet set to approve spending from this year's reserve fund soon
https://newsdig.tbs.co.jp/articles/-/3046032
The LDP has been pushing to cut the subsidy by ¥5 a month starting in December, but the government plans to keep the subsidy itself running for the time being.
PM Takaichi is expected to announce the policy soon, with funding to come from this fiscal year's reserve fund earmarked for responding to the Middle East situation.
According to several officials, the amount under discussion is well above ¥500 billion, with final adjustments still underway within the government.
As a result, cumulative spending on subsidies for gasoline and other fuel oils since fiscal 2021 will top ¥10 trillion.
Meanwhile, more than ¥5 trillion has gone into electricity and gas bill support, mainly during summer and winter, and the fiscal burden has become a real issue.
In summer I was scared of the bill so I toughed it out at 28°C,
and for winter I was planning to just get by with an electric blanket,
but now maybe I can actually run the AC a bit.
Meanwhile, the power company: "We're raising rates."
Still, this is the stingiest relief package in the last 3 years.
Background and points of debate on this topic
This round of electricity/gas subsidies alongside the scaled-back gasoline subsidy comes as fuel-oil subsidies paid out since fiscal 2021 have topped ¥10 trillion cumulatively, and electricity/gas support has also reached over ¥5 trillion, making the fiscal burden a real concern. The government plans to raise the benchmark price for gasoline and other fuel oils by ¥5 every month starting in December, and on the thread this split opinion between the view that “once the subsidy shrinks, prices will soon approach ¥200” and the counterpoint that “kerosene and diesel get the same yen-per-liter subsidy, so the effective subsidy rate on kerosene is actually higher” — differing understandings of how much the subsidy actually helps for each fuel type was one reason the debate split. Also, the “¥7,000 reduction” is the effect for a standard household over three months, and how much it’s actually felt varies a lot depending on heating habits and a home’s insulation — a nuance that’s hard to convey through the article or the thread’s short posts alone.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “Electricity/gas bills to drop ¥7,000 starting in December, gasoline subsidy scaled back.”
Leave a Reply