1.6 mil. people on welfare, up 50,000 amid weakening economy

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TOKYO, March 3 Kyodo -
A total of 1,606,714 people were receiving welfare benefits nationwide as of
December last year, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Tuesday, up
about 53,000 from a year earlier as the economy continued to weaken.
The number of recipients has been on the increase since fiscal 1995 -- after
the early 1990s burst of Japan's asset-inflated bubble economy -- and the
latest figure is at a level that has not seen since fiscal 1964, when the
average number of the recipients per month topped 1.6 million.
The figure for December was apparently pushed up as nonregular and laid-off
workers had joined the welfare program since last autumn.
Economic and employment conditions have continued to deteriorate this year,
stirring concerns that the number of recipients will further increase.
In fiscal 2007, the monthly average number of welfare recipients stood at
around 1.54 million.
==Kyodo
2009-03-03 22:30:58