Spending by wage-earning households fell a real 3.1 percent in April from a year earlier after a 1.7 percent increase in March, but the fall was largely due to a steep rise marked in the same month last year, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said Tuesday.
The average monthly spending by salaried workers' households totaled 354,991 yen, with outlays on transportation and communications as well as education shrinking from year-earlier levels, the ministry said in a preliminary report.
Average monthly income increased a real 1.1 percent to 492,832 yen for the first rise in three months. Disposable income grew a real 3.7 percent to 417,554 yen, also registering the first increase in three months.
Salaried workers' household spending dropped in reaction to the year-before figure, which marked the steepest rise in more than two decades. In April 2004, expenditures of such households jumped 7.2 percent from a year earlier in real terms, the sharpest growth since October 1982.