The government will increase payments awarded to nursing care services for the elderly by an average 1.2 percent beginning in fiscal 2012 (from April). These payments will go directly to entities providing the services — not to the individual care workers themselves. Still, the main purpose of the raise is to help increase the wages for such workers.

To help work out a policy in the future concerning wage levels for nursing-care workers, the government should study in detail their working conditions as well as the financial conditions of the entities providing the services, which reportedly have large cash reserves. The government should consider whether a portion of these reserves could be used to raise the wages of nursing care workers.

The level of payments awarded to nursing-care services is revised every third year. It was revised downward by 2.3 percent for fiscal 2003, and again downward by 2.4 percent for fiscal 2006. For fiscal 2009, it was revised upward by 3 percent, followed by a 1.2 percent upward revision for fiscal 2012.