Is it possible for foreigners to receive public assistance in Japan?

Treatment of aliens on public assistance

All people shall have the right to maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living.

The constitution of Japan, article 25

Japanese life assistance system is originated from the constitution of Japan, article 25 that guarantees the right to live. The public assistance act regulate that only Japanese nations are principally eligible for life assistance service.

Article 4, Public assistance Act

Public assistance shall be provided based on a requirement that a person who is living in poverty shall utilize his/her assets, abilities and every other thing available to him/her for maintaining a minimum standard of living.

However, For those who legally live in Japan and has resident status such as permanent resident and long term resident having no restrain to any activities, public assistance service can be applicable as one of budgetary measure from the viewpoint of international ethic and humanitarian standpoint.

Concretely, the following person can be eligible for public assistance.

• A person who lives in Japan after getting married with Japanese partner
• A person granted status of special permanent resident
• A person who is legally recognized as “refugee”

Each resident status is equivalent correspondingly to Japanese citizenship, which is given to a person whose living base is Japan and its treatment is mostly equivalent to that of Japanese.

These people work in Japan and pay taxes same as other Japanese. It is quite natural from the humanitarian standpoint to take public support measure.

According to the public assistance act, the reason of limiting application to the above three cases is the following factors.

A person who suffers from poverty make as much effort as possible to survive with all available asset and working capacity prior to getting public support from the municipality. This is one of the condition to fulfill to pass the screening of public assistance.

For that reason, applying public assistance to aliens, they need to have the resident status which is equivalent right and treatment to Japanese citizenship and which at least never receive restriction on working in Japan in order to keep balance with the case when applying public assistance to Japanese people from fair standpoint for both Japanese and aliens.

The conditions that you can receive public assistance

• You have no relatives or family to support your living
• You have no property at all
• You can’t work because you got injured or illness
• Your monthly revenue goes below legal minimum monthly cost of living in the condition you satisfies ① to ③

You have no relatives or family to support your living

For example, if you live with your family and one of your family has revenue from his/her work, you can’t receive public assistance because you can be supported by your family.

When you apply for public assistance, “support inquiry” is sent to relatives within the three degrees of kinship.

“Support inquiry” is a document to make sure if there is relatives who can support you wanting to receive public assistance from a municipality. If there is a volunteer for the support in your relatives, you can’t receive public assistance.

You have no property at all

If you have some savings in your bank account or own land, the timing you can receive public assistance is after using up all the savings and money you got from selling land. Unless your asset is quite low standard, your public assistance will be rejected.

 

Your living place also needs to be an apartment. If you have your own house, you need to sell it before applying for public assistance.

However, possessing car is acceptable for the purpose of going to a hospital and looking for a job but this treatment totally depends on the case worker’s decision.

 Laptop or desktop is included as one of your properties. Whether this is accepted as your necessity for your living totally depends on case worker’s decision.

To pass the screening of public assistance, you have to ask for a decision to a case worker whether your each possession needs to sell.

You can’t work because you got injured or illness

If you satisfy the condition No.1 and No.2, it cannot be helped that you can’t work at all because of injury and illness, it is possible for you to receive public assistance.

Your monthly revenue goes below legal minimum monthly cost of living in the condition you satisfies ① to ③

In case you satisfy all the conditions No.1, No.2 and No.3, even if you receive pension insurance or child allowance, total revenue doesn’t reach the legal minimum cost of living regulated by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, you are eligible for receiving public assistance.

How many aliens receive public assistance in Japan

As of 2015, c the number of public assistance receiver’s households is 40,029. Japanese Korean’s public assistance occupancy rate is overwhelming. This is because the number of Japanese Korean is the largest out of the total aliens population in Japan so this is not because only Japanese Korean’s recipient rate is unfairly high.

Nationality	Number of Households	Occupancy rate
South, North Korea	29,482	74%
China	4,966	12%
Philippines	4,234	11%
Brazil	1,455	4%
The United Sates	110	0.2%

Referred from public assistance survey in 2015 by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

The number of public assistance receiver tends to increase in association with increase of aging population.

In addition, this phenomenon is also related with the increase of “special permanent resident” who renounced Japanese nationality in accordance to “Special Act on the Immigration Control of, Inter Alia, Those Who Have Lost Japanese Nationality Pursuant to the Treaty of Peace with Japan”.

Public assistance system in Germany

In Germany, relative poverty rate is quite high and as of 2008, the number of the poor is 11, 500 thousands. Around 14 percent of entire nations is said to be the relative poor.

In Germany, there is minimum social security benefit which is equivalent to public assistance. You have 4 types of benefits in minimum social security benefit.

• Basic security for job seekers (an their families)
• Public support to a person who has no ability to work
• War victims’ benefit
• Basic Benefit for protection of refugees

Receivable benefits are divided into two types of person, which is

• A person who is between jobs in spite of having sufficient working ability and good heath condition
• A person who can’t find a job because of no ability.

Those who are between jobs in spite of having sufficient working ability, have the right to receive ALGⅠ (“Arbeitslosengeld” = Unemployment benefit) and ALGⅡ. ALGⅠis equivalent to Japanese unemployment insurance and ALGⅡ gives me an impression that unemployment insurance also guarantees the benefit of public assistance recover.

This social security system is quite gentle to immigrants. Germany receive many refugees from Middle East Asian countries. One of the reason that they head for Germany is social security benefit.

In Germany, it is way easy for immigrants to receive minimum social security benefits. “Harz IV” is refugee protection system which is applicable to all the refugees.

Germany’s social security benefit recipient conditions are the followings

• Owning no car
• Things are quite tight financially enough not to make living
• Having no job
• There is no financial leeway between an applicant and his/her family and having no one to get support from

In short, a person who has “no property, no money, no job, no one to rely on” is applicable to this minimum social security benefits.

If you pass the screening of this social security, about 360 Euro per month is provided as living costs until you find a job

If you have your child, 60 to 80 percent of provided social security benefit is added on your benefit in accordance to the age of your child.

This provided social security benefit doesn’t include apartment rent. Housing allowance is provided additionally and your child have the right to receive education (including university and language school) for free. Baby bonus is provided additionally (170 Euro per month). Minimum social security benefit is quite hospitable to social security receivers.

You might understand where the problems of immigrants of East Asian countries in Germany originates from. Provided cash amount is not so many but there is possibility to place an enormous financial burden on the German government in the future by receiving quite a few refugees continuously.

Public assistance system in the United States

According to OECD, relative poverty rate is way higher than any other advanced countries. The system of public assistance in Japan is equivalent to

• TANF “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families”
• SSI “Supplement Security Income”
• SNAP “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program” (ex food stamp)
• General Assistance
• Medicaid

TANF
Target	minorities and, pregnant women and their families
Benefit details	decided by each states
The number of allowance receivers	43,710 thousands (as of 2010)
Total provided allowance amount:	17.7 billion dollars (as of 2012)
SSI
Target	Aging people and Handicapped people
The number of allowance receivers	8.263 million (as of 2012)
Monthly Allowance amount	698 dollars per person, 1048 dollars per married couple(as of 2012)
Medicaid
Target	Children in poverty families or pregnant women
The number of allowance receivers	53.9 million (as of 2010)
Total provided allowance amount	605 billion dollars (as of 2010)
SNAP
Target	Households whose income level goes below the legal standard
The number of allowance receivers	466,709 (as of 2010)
Monthly allowance amount	133.44 dollars per person (as of 2012)

General assistance

• public assistance is uniquely provided by the state or the municipality (Earned Income Tax Credit)
• Tax refund to those who have negative after deducting earned income tax credit from income tax

Speaking of public assistance in the United States, you may come up with SNAP(food stamp).

SNAP is an assistance system to give a voucher which you can’t exchange to luxury grocery items like beer and tobacco instead of giving directly money.

In the United States, social security administration uniquely prepares another guarantees for aging people, handicapped people and children in poverty and pregnant women. However, 698 dollars per month is too few to relief from the depth of poverty. This amount is much fewer than that of Japan.

The reason foreigners receiving public assistance come under scrutiny

This is because of wrongful benefit receivers.

In Adachi-ku, Tokyo, Korean women and her husband arrested under suspicion of dishonest recipient of public assistance. They kept receiving public assistance benefit while they run Korean bar and earned over 100 million yen.

Korean women was also suspected of buying new house. Most of benefit receivers went through the legal formalities for receiving public assistance but on the other hand, The amount of annual uncollected benefits from wrongful receivers are 167 million yen in total.

This kind of wrongful benefit recipient problem is only the tip of an iceberg but never-ceasing like vicious spiral of the authority and offenders.

You might understand how serious problems is judging from the amount of uncollected public assistance. This uncollected benefits are based on the number of detected unlawful benefit recipient, which means there is possibility that we have more wrongful benefit receivers whom the authority still doesn’t realize.

Conclusion

Public assistance is allocated from fiscal resources saved up by nations tax payment. Of course, you run into a lot of flak from the people about your eligibility to receive public assistance.

Reflecting the people’s fairness, the authority makes its condition stricter and stricter. We have a case that a person who requested public assistance was dead from hunger because a case worker stubbornly rejected his request until the very end although he knew the applicant’s living condition.

Passing through screening of public assistance is difficult enough to go through the eye of needle because some municipalities don’t help even on applicant’s deathbed. Moreover, if you are position of foreigner in Japan, it is quite difficult to win public assistance. Many obstacles get in your way.

Relying on the Japanese government is the last resort. Japan has no marcy against the people suffering from serious poverty. All you need to do is trusting yourself and just somehow crawling up from the hell by yourself.