Life just seems to be getting harder and harder for the beleaguered Japanese salaryman. According to a June 28th article in Mainabi News, the average monthly allowance for salarymen today has fallen to ¥38,457, the lowest since the asset price bubble burst in 1991. This is also the second lowest amount since the annual survey started being held in 1979.

While salarymen in their fifties saw a modest gain in their monthly pocket money--up a miserable 56 yen to ¥41,331--those in their twenties and thirties found their allowance dropping by 2,743 yen to ¥38,480 and 2,976 yen to ¥37,093, respectively. Men in their forties had the most meager of allowances at only ¥36,924, a slight improvement of 469 yen over last year.

Among the younger generation, single salarymen had an average monthly allowance of  ¥46,175 (down 4,219 yen from last year). Their counterparts with children, however, had a mere ¥29,552 in pocket money every month.

The above graph provides some historical perspective. It shows the change in pocket money from 1979, when the average allowance was ¥30,600 to 2003 when it was ¥42,700. The most generous allowance (¥76,000) was seen in 1990 at the height of the bubble when the Nikkei average peaked at ¥39,915. The drop seen in 2003 is attributed to a number of factors: the start of the Iraq War, the SARS epidemic, restructuring in the banking industry, and the Nikkei average falling to ¥7,909.

You can file the following under "Articles I do NOT want my wife to read".

The survey mentioned in yesterday’s posting detailed the spending habits of salarymen, finding that the average price for lunch, while up eight yen, was only ¥518, suggesting that the “one-coin lunch” [1] trend was as strong as ever. 30.7% of salarymen’s lunches consisted of bentō brought to work from home, up from 28% last year. 24.9% of lunches were bentō that had been purchased (down from 25.2%). 19.2% of lunches were eaten out (up from 17.3%). And finally 17.2% of lunches were served by their company's canteen or shokudō.

When out drinking, salarymen in 2013 spend on average ¥3,474 (up 614 yen), bringing the amount up to the 2011 level. This, however, is the third lowest amount since 1999 when the survey began inquiring about spending habits.

40-year-olds are spending an average of 905 yen more this year when out drinking (¥3,525); 50-year-olds, 1,284 yen more (¥4,114).

On average, salarymen go drinking 2.2 times per month (down 0.2), spending ¥7,689, an increase of ¥746 over last year, which witnessed the lowest amount spent on drinking outside. This year is the second lowest.

Of those salarymen who control the family finances, only 6% said they intended to increase their own allowances. 5.5% replied that they would lower it. The remaining 88.5% said that they didn’t expect to see any change in the amount of pocket money they had.

I wrote the piece above back in 2013. (I am in the process of transferring my old blog content to my new website.) Curiosity had me look for more recent data. The following graph is from June of 2020. I suspect that as the pandemic has worsened, so have the circumstances of those poor salarymen.

As of June 2020, the average allowance/pocket money of male company employees was ¥39,419 a month, the highest level in the past five years, according to a study by the Shinsei Bank. This represented an increase of ¥2,672 over the previous year. Those in their 20s had on average ¥41,377 to blow every month. Meanwhile those in their 30s had ¥37,874; those in their 40s, ¥36,449; and those in their 50s, ¥41,987.

Female company employees had on average ¥33,854 in pocket money every month, or ¥585 more than the previous year.

When comparing men at different life stages, single men had on average ¥46,714, while their married counterparts had to get by on about ¥30,000. The older the salaryman’s children, the smaller his allowance and the less his wife and children like him.

As to why there has been an increase in spending money, 76.1% of salarymen reported that their salary had increase. 19.3% had taken on side jobs. 14.8% made money investing in stocks. While 53.3% of women said that their salary had increased, 15.6% said that cost of living had fallen, giving them extra money to spend on themselves.

Among those who saw their allowances fall, 40.2% said it was due to a fall in their income; 28.0%, an increase in the cost of living; 17.8%, increased cost of children’s education. Similarly, 44.8% of woman who had smaller allowances said that it was because their salary had been cut; 30.4%, due to increased cost of living; and 14.4% because of increased costs related to their children’s education.