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The story
A thread started by a welfare recipient went viral after they said their daily food budget, which covered meals at ¥600 each back in 2018, now costs ¥1,000 in 2026. The thread quickly split between posters arguing that benefits should rise to match inflation, and others pointing out that recipients already got an extra ¥100,000 lump-sum payment. Workers pushed back too, noting that some of them clear only ¥1,000 a day even after working 12 hours. The debate spiraled into questions about work motivation and the constitutional “duty to work,” and the thread kept growing without any real resolution.
What people said
Wait, really?
I had no idea
We should raise the benefit amount for the sake of public safety too
Prices are so high right now, if we don't raise it things are gonna get really bad
Maybe switch jobs…
Welfare's basically the top tier in a way (laughs)
But you're getting a decent paycheck too, right?
There's nowhere to fish near me
We don't have any out in the countryside where I live, but isn't La Muu (a discount supermarket chain) pretty cheap?
I'm below the median income so I don't get any benefits
¥1,000 covers about 3 days of food for me, including cooking at home
Just go on welfare then
I just sit in front of my PC all day
If you want to boost my motivation to work, pay me a decent salary then
Can you actually do work worth that salary though?
I thought the whole point was to boost my motivation to work?
Don't you ever feel like trying to do something, though?
I do creative work
Huh, well, at least you're trying to create a way out
I do some programming and give it away for free
I'm not complaining, I just need money
Then it'd be better to hire literally anyone but you
What are you even getting confused about?
Isn't the goal supposed to be raising my motivation to work?
Raising work motivation and raising pay are partly separate issues
If you want a higher salary, you need to study and improve yourself
That's not even a "cultured" standard of living though
I'm not the one who wants this
You guys were the ones who started saying you wanted to raise my work motivation
Read the thread properly
It's less about raising OP's work motivation and more that I just don't want to keep paying taxes for lazy people
If it's an emergency measure to protect your life, that's a natural right of self-preservation as a living being
That might honestly end up happening
If you worked at a sheltered workshop for people with disabilities, that would count as a "cultured" life, right?
If that's the bar, I'd rather work somewhere with better pay
The duty to work is in the Constitution, not in any actual law
The Constitution isn't something that binds citizens directly
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Welfare payments in Japan are based on the “livelihood assistance standard” set by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, which is revised every few years to reflect prices and the spending patterns of ordinary households. In recent years, one-off top-up payments have sometimes been added on top of regular benefits in response to rising prices, and the “extra ¥100,000” mentioned in the thread appears to refer to one such payment — though the thread itself never confirms the exact program or timing. The debate split along one core line: should welfare payments be raised to keep pace with prices, or should priority go to workers earning similarly modest incomes who are struggling just as much? Welfare is a system meant to guarantee the “minimum standard of wholesome and cultured living” promised under the Constitution, and it’s calculated on a different basis than wages for working people — so a simple yen-for-yen comparison doesn’t fully capture what the system is meant to do.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G board) thread “I’m on welfare, and meals that cost ¥600 in 2018 now cost ¥1,000 in 2026.”
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