The share of Japanese households with no financial assets rose to a record high as falling incomes forced people to dig into their savings, highlighting the potential for widening disparities under "Abenomics."
The proportion reached 31 percent, according to a Bank of Japan survey released Thursday in, up from 26 percent a year earlier and the highest since the poll began in 1963. The BOJ surveyed 8,000 households of two or more people aged 20 years or older from June 14 though July 23.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe needs to convince companies to drive up workers' pay so he can sustain an economic recovery jump-started by fiscal and monetary stimulus and maintain public support. Already facing declines in wages, households will be hit in April by a consumption-tax increase intended to shore up Japan's finances.
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