Do The Japanese Feel Poor? | Street Interview 

plaza accord doing it's thing

It would be awesome if there's a follow up video on this few months down the road. Japan has not experienced this type of inflation in decades and the upcoming shunto wage negotiation will likely see the highest increase in wages. Would be curious to how ppl feel about their income/wealth increase relative to prices increasing all around them.

@@levelaznlevel, Plaza Accords helped Japan face reality that their economy was not sustainable in the long run by keeping their currency artificially low. . It also made Japan incredibly rich.

Life in Japan is quite difficult. Wages are not going up, only prices are going up. In addition, the number of elderly people is increasing, and the amount of tax paid will continue to increase. I'm jealous because the salary in America and Australia is twice as much as in Japan. We recommend investing in fast-growing India. By the way, the reason Japanese wages are not going up is because the traitorous government is letting cheap foreign workers into Japan. Most jobs for foreigners in Japan include modeling, English teaching, and manual labor. However, there is also a possibility in Japan. That's when robots replaced manual workers.

@@INFP-T50INFP, your first paragraph is correct. Your second paragraph is far removed from reality.

Was that Japanese sarcasm? 🤔

@@beadnut I'm pretty sure he was serious.

Sarcasm isn't something japanese use. You have to explain it to them and even so they don't really get it ​@@beadnut

What does "katana" mean?

​@@TheWhippingPostSamurai sword making.... We that practice Iaido and kendo pay a lot for 1 single sword....

I thought in Japan things are better for people ...but looks like is the same as Europe

Yo, underrated comment; this interviewer is GOLD. Very rare to have an all-around quality interviewer in almost any RU-vid street interview videos. Unobtrusive, consistent but also reactive and humanistic.

It’s always the oldies like that that gotta lie he even said at the end they are pretending lol idiotic old man lolol clown who tf buying swords in todays age 🤡🤡😂😂

The chill types are often the real deal.

Bro said that with no hesitation 😂

When you randomly bump into the most sincere person in Japan.

Oh you got that backwards. The income is more important, because (a) it's something you can control and (b) it has infinite upside whereas costs can only be reduced 100%

They are both important. It's the ratio that gives the results.

@Dayvit78 Have you seen the prices of the San Francisco Bay Area. Imagine if they built enough skyscrapers' apartment Complexes. The housing cost would come down for future generations. Deflation is good for the economy. As well as increasing the supply to outpace demand.

Income is definitely not important lol​@@Dayvit78

​@@CoreyANeal2000if they build all of that,the price of a house around there will go up higher😅..The more developed the area is,the more expensive its gonna be😅..Housing costs will never go down in a developed area.

Calm down angry person … everyone is struggling … low wages and high rent is a common problem in every country

Disagree, that's an oversimplification. Goods trend towards similar global prices though, especially manufactured goods, and produce prices are affected by global markets. So those in a high cost of living country could be better off dependent on their housing situation.

If so many Japanese people were struggling like you said, amusements parks all over the country wouldn’t be a destination to Japanese people every weekend etc, when people are struggling this much they barely have money to eat comfortably and do housing stuff and pay bills, people are not struggling as you said, it might be your own vision, I believe there are a significant number of Japanese people right now but it would be so naive to say “ everyone Japanese I know is struggling right now “

mrggy, why are you frustrated? If foreigners see how cheap Japan is now, why can't they be happy about that?

Yes when you factor in low salaries it all kinda evens out. They have similar purchasing power as people in the EU or US. Except they also have a really great country that's super safe and almost everyone is Japanese and shares their culture. What I wouldn't give for my country to go back in time 30 years to when it was in a similar state.

Yep only USA getting rich, a UPS driver making 170k USD per year, a dream salary anywhere else in the world.

Businesses are making record profits, but wages never go up.

It's the globalists.

Well that's the result of debt as money, which is employed world wide. Governments worldwide are in debted, America has 35 trillion dollars of debt alone, but so do all other countries have hundreds of billions or a trillion of debt. This is just the natural outcome of our system.

I bought a house four years ago my mortgage increased 433% since then.... and my income has improved 3.25 % ... It's ridiculous.... I can't believe this, however I am still lucky I have a warm home and enough food.

No, she was like " go out and play?" we never do that....

Exactly

For him 1,200 USD is enough to be able to get by in a very expensive city like Tokyo. This guy is a legend.

@@Erick-ev5zt Probably because Buddhists have fewer desires.

Yeah, you could see him almost tear up when he talked about it.

That samurai story is a good example of this concept of 'face' in Asian societies. (In Chinese - 面子) A private one where only your closest family and friends see (your true self), and another for everyone else (strangers, acquaintances, distant relatives, your colleagues and superiors). And it is the latter where you want to make yourself look good so you'll seem respectable and people wouldn't think ill or look down on you (i.e. prestige and reputation). Sometimes, people do go out of their way to inflate that public 'face' even though it is beyond their means just to make themselves look like they're living "better".

Idiots lol

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡😂😂😭

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡😂😂😭ぉお

Kids like you gotta learn to know a lier

Wow US sucks rn too

earning 20000USD in developing nations is better than earing 30000 35000 in developed nations which is way below per capita

Earning 20k$ in developing nation is like earning 40k$-60k$ in developed countries grocery price are not so different but rent eduction and transport drives cost of living in most developed nation in California or NYC a 1500$ apartment could cost just 250$ in developing nations ​@@arlecchino248

​@@arlecchino248a bachelors degree that cost 50k$-100k$ for entire program.would only cost 10k$ for entire 4years in developing countries example Thailand 350kbhat 4yrs at Bangkok university just around 10k$ for 4yrs tuition. Grocery prices and dining out we're almost close to prices in developed country though but there are ton of.things that's ridiculously cheap in developing.nations

I think what screwed is just in big city like tokyo where housing and rent is extremely expensive, if you live outside of tokyo it actually kinda good

wow i just realized you were in the "you know you're dating a russian" video.

@@giantlabs lol that I was

Alina, you totally skipped Naiyang Beach on your last trip to Phuket.... I am more shocked at how many Rich Russians there are in Phuket despite their war.

not surprising considering japan has been in deflation for 30 years.

Things will only change for the worse because Japan is a rapidly aging population with a birth rate that is below replacement rate for many decades now so both Japan and many other developed countries will be in for some really tough times ahead. The future will not be better.

The root cause is Big government printing money causing inflation stealing the fruits of everyone's labor to keep it for themselves and their corrupt scum friends.

American wages have increased dramatically in the last 15 years.

At least the houses in Japan are extremely cheap. Although it looks like with migration opening up the prices are slowly starting to creep up. And Blackrock has been invited in so they'll probably begin to buy them all out in order to force everyone into rental agreements.

Yeah we have decades of central banking and FIAT currency printing transfering wealth from everyone to the richest and most powerful. No wonder everyone is struggling.

So have prices! actually prices increased even more thanks to QE and the Corona printing extravaganza@@earlysda

@@Cha4k cheap in rural, very expensive in cities

Nora, did you study in Hokkaido Univeristy in 2012-2013?

This needs to be talked more. I've been thinking about moving somewhere in Asia but it was a shock to me how little the salaries are in many of the countries there. It's so annoying that they don't even mention the salary range in any of the job postings.

​@@strawberrysoup202 some are mentioned but very rare. They would ask you for a salary range but 🥴

what did you do in the business sector?

​@@strawberrysoup202 or maybe because everything in the West is super expensive that Japanese salary seems small to Westerners. I mean, JNG (japanese national government) collected data in their archive about annual household expense in Tokyo and the figure for 2022 was around ¥3,500,000. Sounds a lot of money but if you convert it to usd, that's only around $23,000.

Samurai/mafia guy was the most based. The backpacker monk guy had some good ideas, but some weird ones too.

Hmm except the part when he said that young people can live in internet cafes. Even poor people should have a roof over his head and a place/room he could really sleep and feel safe.

That guy that lived with the monk was the one that spew the most amount of nonsense! Their parents did right to disown him, he would probably just drag the whole family down.

@@ksooskksoosk, the internet cafe comment was about 10 years behind the times. Nearly everything that man said was from a different era almost.

The thailand guy is a Ignorant fool LOL what do you think that makes you?

It sounds like America, minus the last part

@@julianzuniga8905 It really does, which confuses why so many US people are giving advice on the comment thread.

House prices in Japan are *much* less than in Western Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, etc., however, and having a roof over your head is priority #1. You can purchase a decent quality akiya in "walk in" condition in a pleasant rural area within easy commuting range of the big cities for *under* US$20,000. Try that the USA or UK. : )

@@dw620 not true, these places are not cheap because Japan is affordable, it is because nobody wants to live in these places cause these cities are dying. Not enough young people and lot of elders. Try finding a house within the city , it is pricey as well. And 20.000 USD you cannot really find a place to live that you won’t have to reform or so, which sometimes cost more than the price of the house cause in japan reforming is quite expensive.

@@crownsofhia9864 Who said anything about "cheap because Japan is affordable" - it's because there are too many houses that people don't need (declining population) and being able to sell them for any money at all is better than leaving them to ruin while having to pay. I've seen plenty pictures: the majority are liveable, many are half-way decent and if you need to spend any money for upgrades it's *still* dramatically cheaper than any possible option for someone living in Oz, US, Canada, UK, etc. A factor anyone from Japan thinking about leaving the country to earn "big money" elsewhere has to take into account.

But Japanese people are not poor

Love your retro avatar!

@@AndIwandermuchreturn to your country

​@@nidhirao7728 yeah I wanna know too, working remotely might help alot

@@chinavirus841Thanks! I will submit my transfer request to the US on Monday morning lol😂

@@AndIwandermuch Ty ❤️

Lucky you! I should try looking for companies that pay in USD. Heck, earning a meager 50,000 USD is pretty much a high roller in Japan!

I’m curious how much I can get for 1715 I’m retired lol

Here in Spain it happens the same. Foreigners say everything is cheap, but when you earn 20k/year for blue-collar jobs and 30k/year for white-collar ones... life is tough! I'm an IT Systems & Networks Technician and my biggest salary ever was €29k, so guess... in USA the same position is paid $85k+

Yeah, that's the exchange rate for you. Last time I was there, £1 was close to ¥200 and it's almost there again now. Might be time to take a trip and put some more foreign currency into Japan :)

Rental is expensive in Tokyo.

It’s a recent phenom actually. People were complaining about deflation and the appreciation of yen for the past three decades. Then suddenly we got both of those reversed. Still, necessities are generally affordable compared to other G7 nations, but naturally you rarely find anybody thinking in USD terms.

I think it's best to work in America and come to Japan for sightseeing.

You say you're against the war, but if uncle Vladimir doesn't arrest you then you should be fine right? I'm sorry if that came across as naive. I wanna know more about what Russians are going through right now, what's the average pay and cost of living for example? And.... are most people okay with what's going on in Ukraine? Thanks in advance for the insight!

Japanese used to love to travel abroad. But not so much anymore.

Dishies are the backbone of the restaurant industry, much respect!

Which explains why tens of thousands of foreign nationals are clamoring to cross the border into the USA daily. Simply getting paid in USD for one’s labor is a life altering event for them. The treacherous journey to simply step foot into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, or California is worth the simple reward of getting paid in USD, regardless of the job.

@@loganflatt Yes, the currency value difference is huge. A Southeast Asian could work as a dishwasher in Massachusetts for three years and buy a decent house in his or her country without having to take any loan

A dishwasher making 15 an hour in one of the most expensive states in the country. How much are rents in Boston?

@@cboy0394 Many restaurants in the state provide housing and transportation for their workers

With current conversion rates I pay the equivalent of £321 per month for a 3 bedroom flat with a garden, In a quiet neighborhood next to a forest in Yokohama. In Australia I paid the equivalent of £932 per month for a 1 bedroom apartment, no garden, on a busy and loud main road. High crime area next to freight train tracks.

Things that Japanese people don’t do , specially with the culture of having always old people on top… nothing changes.

Isn't rich? 4th biggest economy. Japan is still a rich country.

This is what pisses me off to a grand extent. Japan used to be the brains behind innovation. Japanese companies would vie for the most effective, most efficient, simplest, strongest, absolute best goods and services that made absolute sense. The directors of these companies demanded innovation themselves. Unfortunately, those directors were eventually replaced by successors who were some of the dumbest, densest, most absolutely inept idiots known to man - and don't think that I'm being offensive for the sake of being offensive, because it's a view that has gained tremendous weight as time has passed by. The original directors wanted innovation. They wanted light bulbs to be turned on in people's brains. Their successors (not limited to just the one next successor in each case, but passing through many successors) started to look more towards the American über-capitalist system. They didn't want innovation. They didn't want more nuances. They didn't want a shake-up in their businesses. They wanted to ride this one wave of one way to profit off one product (or one line of products), forever and ever and ever and ever into eternity. 'Eternal income'. Like a gold mine that never depletes. That meant that innovation doesn't matter anymore. If I'm not mistaken, someone in the highest echolons of Sony (possibly the director) wanted Sony to devise and manufacture products that people ten years into the future would want. That was the philosophy that drove Sony through much of the latter half of the 20th Century. That's why Sony came up with the Trinitron, the Walkman, the Discman, the PlayStation, a whole range of home entertainment goods that people remember with immense fondness. Unfortunately, today's Sony, much like the rest of the big companies in business (not just in electrical and electronic goods), is barely a shadow of itself. 'We don't want to think about the future. We want profits now, and we'll get that with products that are far too safe to fail with the common layperson.' (Or so I imagine these idiots are thinking). The passion for innovation is stifled far too much. The passion for taking risks and making mistakes and either falling out of the competition or having to fall back on what is making money, is waning, if not already about to be extinguished. I hate the way global society has gone in the 21st Century. This may yet serve to be humanity's second Dark Ages.

@@chaoticheaven17 Japan is 3rd isn't it?

@@kingearth3672 Germany recently surpassed Japan's economy.

💯💯💯

aero, part of your analysis is correct. The other aspect is that Japanese workers don't quickly adopt new ways of doing things, so their productivity is very poor. Everything is done by the manual.

How much rent do you have to pay though? what porpotion of your salary does it take up? Isn’t Singaporean housing really expensive? The issue here is the yen has depreciated against the dollar so much so it sounds even worse than it actually is. Though none of the people they have spoken to here are well off, that’s for sure.

Correct 100%

The median salary in Japan, for 2024 is 471,000 JPY (3,470 USD) per month

Median income in Tokyo alone is 574K (4,229 USD). So its even higher than the average income. Median income is not a useful metric either when using as a comparison either (since this graph would have an extremely high skew). Its actually better to use a 95% distribution average (i.e. the average income that the middle 95% of the population). If you need a hard number instead of a range of numbers.

Japan doesn’t have a huge wealth distribution so average also fine.

jpy/usd highest rate ever was 79. That was right after the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995. It hung around 110 for a long time, but 2 years ago start dropping. Japan is a fire sale now for foreigners.

Very true!

the knife guy?

Idiots lolol kids are too easy

🤡🤡😂😂😭🤡😂🤡🤡

But the cost of living in the US is very high, rent food and everything.

@@mamig3216 it really depends where you are. Americans in general live a very large life, wanting lots of space and toys. Japanese are typically much, much, less consumed with that.

Best of both worlds!

Let me guess, he's a software engineer right? I'm so jealous of the US salaries, us Europeans struggling over here

@@strawberrysoup202 Operations engineer for some biotech.

Not unusual to find someone aged 70 and above working in Japan

Yup. If it was 1 = 100 yen, their salaries don’t seem as bad honestly. I live in Osaka and am from NYC. If I make 300,000 yen here, I would consider myself making 4000 usd because the cost of living is much cheaper here. Taxes too. Normal lunch in NYC now would be 15-20 USD where as it would be like 500-1000 yen here

yeah, i have lived in 3 countries and price per parity is the fairest way to understand how well people living. unfortunately, idiots just raw converted the salary 😂

PPP is a joke. How many PPPs does it take to buy an ounce of gold?

@@earlysda And how many people buy an ounce of gold as a part of their daily routine? If that is the insight you can give into PPP, maybe it is better to not say anything at all

@@tsuivotsuivo, well, you have, perhaps unwittingly, just shown that PPP cannot purchase anything at all. So my initial observation that PPP is a joke is verified. . Hopefully you will learn about economics and start questioning so-called "scholars" who come up with odd ideas like PPP soon!

住んでいるけど

ほんまそれーー

割と現実に合ってると思うけど。 というか、外国人の人ってお金に対する興味が強すぎないかー 比べれば、日本人はお金に無頓着な人が多い印象。 それが美徳みたいに言われてるからというのはあるかも。l