In December, economist Paul Krugman’s advice in his New York Times column to raise the minimum wage provoked lively discussions in the United States. President Barack Obama is attempting to raise the federal minimum wage. The discussions not only reflect a predictable divergence of views on recovery from the last economic crisis but also are related to the traditional issue of how to take a "national minimum" of civilized life into consideration when trying to achieve economic growth.

It is difficult nowadays to think of social policy solely on the domestic level because the state tax system is malfunctioning as a result of deepening global economic interdependence: Governments, including the Abe administration, are encouraging companies to do business globally and are trying to attract foreign capital by lowering their corporate taxes. While the extremely wealthy can choose where to live to maximize their gains under this system, the poor and the middle class are driven into a corner.

In this vein, the revision of Japan's Livelihood Protection Act (the law on welfare payments provided to low-income people) deserves attention. On Dec. 6, a bill to revise the act was approved by the Diet in almost a stealthy manner around the same time as the Diet's approval of the controversial state secrets law. This was a sneaky strategy on the part of the government since the revision, which contains generally harsher measures for applicants and recipients of public livelihood assistance, had been much criticized throughout 2013.