The Limits Of Abenomics

The prime minister’s policies have boosted factories in fukui prefecture. But not wages

- Yoshiaki Nohara

On paper, Fukui, a prefecture on the western coast of Japan, looks like an advertisement for the policies of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who’s up for reelection on 22 October. The area boasts an expanding economy, one of the country’s lowest jobless rates, and the highest level of female employment in the nation.

Nevertheless, Chiyoko Yamamoto, a textile worker at Fukui Tateami Co., says she and her family have benefited little from four-plus years of Abenomics. Like most Japanese, she’s still waiting for the big wage gains the government has consistently promised. With her pay stagnant, she’s concerned about Abe’s plans to raise the sales tax from 8 per cent to 10 per cent. “It increases my expenses. That’s all I care about,” says Yamamoto, who’s been employed at Fukui Tateami for more than 20 years. “I can’t say my life is getting better.”

Fukui is a stronghold of the Liberal Democratic Party, which faces a weak and fractured opposition and is expected to retain power. Abe, who’s poised to become Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, has touted his economic record, with six straight quarters of growth, unemployment of less than 3 per cent, and an extended bull run that’s bid up Japanese stocks to their highest level in more than two decades. As evidence of his policy success, Abe has repeatedly pointed to the rise in the jobs-to- applicant ratio, which is now more than 1 to 1 in all of the country’s 47 prefectures.