Household spending up 0.6% in October, household income up 0.4%

December 2, 2007
By Ken Worsley

The final report issued by the Statistics Bureau last week showed Japan’s household spending up 0.6 percent in October over the same month a year ago. The pace of growth was behind the 3.2% seen in September.

At the same time, income per household stood at 469,981 yen in October, which was 0.4% higher than a year ago. In September, average household income was at 431,793 yen per household.

As we have seen in many past months, higher education costs led the charge in terms of expenditure increases. Spending on education increased 6.5% per household over last year. Spending on household utilities rose 2.0 percent, while 1.8% more was spent on medical costs. No other category saw an increase greater than 0.8 percent - housing was at 0.8% exactly.

At the same time, clothing expenditures fell 2.8 percent, and spending on food fell 2.0 percent.

Despite the decline, spending on food remained the highest of all categories (except for ‘other’) in real terms at 68,195 yen. Spending on ‘other’ was at 68,703 yen.

Filed Under Economic Reports, Household Spending