The future promise of Abenomics notwithstanding, Japan's white-collar office workers are still being squeezed in terms of their discretionary spending. Results of the annual survey of salaryman kozukai (allowance), released June 28 by Shinsei Bank, noted that this year the average monthly spending money fell from 2012 by ¥1,299 to ¥38,457, making it the second lowest since the bank began its survey in 1979. (The all-time highest monthly allowance, in 1990, was ¥77,725.)
The survey found their average lunchtime outlay was ¥518, broken down by 30.7 percent who bring meals from home; 24.9 percent who purchase boxed meals; and 19.2 percent who eat in restaurants. While the respondents said they paid out an average of ¥614 more than the previous year each time they went out for drinks — making the average tab ¥3,474 — the overall frequency declined.
The budgetary squeeze raises the question: Do chains of low-cost eateries, family restaurants, izakaya (Japanese-style pubs) and so on cut corners on food safety to provide these increasingly impecunious salarymen with ever-cheaper lunches and after-five snacks?