The struggles of minimum wage

by Keita Sakato

There are a lot of irregular workers in Japan today. They might have fallen into this situation because of Japan’s precarious economics. Then, can they make sufficient money with irregular jobs?

The minimum wage is different in each prefecture. For example, it is 869 yen per hour in Tokyo. This is the highest in Japan. On the other side, in 8 prefectures such as Kochi and Tokushima, it is only 664 yen per hour. This is the lowest in Japan, and the average wage per hour is 764 yen. There are such big differences among urban prefectures like Tokyo and rural prefectures like Kochi. However, the differences in wages are not a problem because the prices of all things are higher in urban prefectures than in other prefectures. The problem which we need to pay attention to is that the minimum wage is too low to make enough money.

It is too difficult to live contentedly if people work at the lowest minimum wage, 664 yen. For example, if a man who was fired by a company and has no family started an irregular job which is the lowest wage one, can he get back to a stable life? He works 8 hours a day and 4 days a week. Even though he wishes to work 7 days a week, he cannot do because there are only a few jobs for irregular workers. He can earn 5,312 yen a day, 21,248 yen a week and 84,992 yen a month. He lives alone in a small apartment and cannot depend on his family because he has nothing. He needs to pay the rent of his apartment, 40,000 yen, and the expenses for lighting and fuel, 9,000 yen a month. Also, he needs to pay his taxes, 8,000 yen a month. The left money is only about 28,000 yen. Of course he must eat to live, so he must pay food expenses from his left money. He has no money to live as a normal man. He will not be able to eat delicious foods and play with anyone. He may abandon his apartment because of the high rent for him. After that, he will spend every night in the net café or fast food shop or by the river.

The above example is not a special case. Some unfortunate Japanese people fall into bad situations like this one. The government has to rescue them from this situation. One of the ways to rescue them is to raise the minimum wage for irregular workers because the present wage is too low. This is the thing that the government should do making haste.