&gt; The report looked at the gap between the income of the poorest Japanese families with children and the average household income.<p>This is the relative definition of &quot;poverty&quot;. Throws me every time until I remember that in western political talk, &quot;poverty&quot; almost always means &quot;relative poverty&quot;, which &quot;is a measure of income inequality.&quot; (Wikipedia)<p>Maybe we&#x27;re looking at the rich country problem of the average household being overpaid. Sad they can&#x27;t overpay every Japanese, but not exactly catastrophic either.