For the first time, the number of households in Japan receiving welfare benefits exceeded one million in 2005, according to a Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare report on 26th February.

The ministry said the high number was mainly due to an increase in the number of elderly people eligible for welfare. During the boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the number of households receiving welfare dropped, but now with a greater proportion of the country aging even the economic upswing of 2005 has not reversed the previous high reached in fiscal 2004.

This occurrence puts even more pressure on government estimates for taxation, pensions and welfare as the population starts to decline and more rapidly age as a whole.