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Help A Salaryman. Watch This Video.

It’s come to my attention that Japanese wives have been getting more and more stingy with their husband’s spending money. While in 1990 Japanese salarymen received on average 76,000 yen per month to spend on lunch, beer and other fun things, salarymen of today only get on average 36,500 yen per month (that’s around $450 thanks to the good Japanese→Dollar exchange rate, so it probably feels more like $350). This decrease is due to the economy (and more recently) the earthquake. Japanese are just getting more careful with their money all around. But that’s exactly why I decided to create the “Save The Salaryman Foundation” over 20 years ago. I want to help these poor, sober Japanese salarymen drink again.

“Keeping Japanese Salarymen Drinking since 1991″

In a “traditional” Japanese family, the husband goes out and works all the time while the wife stays home and takes care of the child/children, cleans, and deals with all the money stuff. Along with this “money stuff” comes the responsibility to give money (back) to the husband for spending money. They spend their money on things like lunch, snacks, beer, and other fun things. Basically, it’s their “spending money.” Their “allowance” if you will.

The economy in Japan, though, hasn’t been all that great lately. The earthquake, of course, didn’t help, and people all over Japan have been holding onto their money more and businesses have been seeing less business. When a business sees less business they can’t pay as many of their workers are much, and so they spend less money because of that. It’s a terrifying circle if you ask me, but it’s the salarymen, of course, who are really suffering (they need their beer money!). All those smart housewives have been giving out less as a result.

Some ways Salaryman money has changed:

• In 1990 Salarymen got 76,000 yen vs. the 36,500 yen they get now.
• Japanese salarymen bring lunch to work a lot more often now (to save money).
• On average, they spend 490 yen for lunch.
• Salarymen eat out 2.9 times per month and spend 3540 yen each outing (compared to 6000 yen only 2 years ago, in 2009).
• The last time it was this low as 1982, which is nearly 30 years ago.

Hope you enjoyed this just-for-fun post. All joking aside, though, go buy a salaryman a beer. He probably needs another more than you think.