On October 9, 2026, Japan's Statistics Bureau published its monthly report on the Family Income and Expenditure Survey, for August. The report is in Japanese.
A box at the top of page 1 reads, in translation: consumption expenditure, two-or-more-person households, per household, 310,975 yen. And beneath it: compared with the same month a year earlier, a decrease of 3.1% in real terms.
We are going to read that report. This is not investment advice, and we take no view on whether any of this is good or bad. We are translating a government document.
The box on page 1
- Consumption expenditure per household, August 2026: ¥310,975
- Year on year, real: −3.1%
- Year on year, nominal: −1.0%
- Month on month, seasonally adjusted, real: +0.1%
Nominal is the change in yen as spent. Real is that change with the change in consumer prices taken out. The report's first 2 pages do not name the price index used for this total; the survey's explanatory notes, a separate page on the Statistics Bureau's site, say it is the consumer price index for all items, less imputed rent. Amounts are yen per household for the month.
Under the box is a table of 13 months of that real, year-on-year change. The last 6, in percent:
- March 2026: −2.9
- April 2026: −0.5
- May 2026: −0.4
- June 2026: −3.3
- July 2026: −3.6
- August 2026: −3.1
A second row of the same table gives a 3-month moving average, which reads −3.3 for August. A second chart on page 1 gives a seasonally adjusted real index, with 2025 set to 100: July 96.4, August 96.5. On the next page, beside the August total, the report writes a remark: ９か月連続の実質減少, "9th consecutive month of real decrease".
The 10 categories
Page 2 splits that spending into 10 categories. Here are the real changes from a year earlier, largest decrease first.
- Education: −12.3%
- Clothing and footwear: −8.7%
- Furniture and household utensils: −6.3%
- Housing: −5.8%
- Fuel, light and water charges: −5.2%
- Other consumption expenditures: (−5.1%), printed in brackets; a note says the bracketed figure is made real with the consumer price index excluding imputed rent of owner-occupied homes
- Culture and recreation: −4.3%
- Medical care: −1.9%
- Food: −1.4%
- Transportation and communication: +0.2%, with the remark "first real increase in 4 months"
Food is the largest amount in the table: ¥104,220. Education is the smallest: ¥6,230.
The last number column is headed "contribution to the real rate of change (%)". By that column the order is different.
- Other consumption expenditures: (−0.75), again in brackets
- Culture and recreation: −0.51
- Food: −0.43
- Housing: −0.35
- Fuel, light and water charges: −0.35
- Education: −0.29
- Furniture and household utensils: −0.28
- Clothing and footwear: −0.23
- Medical care: −0.09
- Transportation and communication: +0.03
The items under the table
Below the table, the report names sub-categories, and beside most of them one item, each with its contribution to the real change. 3 sub-categories are listed as increases.
- Remittance: +0.31, and beside it, remittance to students away from home, domestic, +0.19
- Private transportation (the Bureau's English name for 自動車等関係費, the sub-category of car-related spending): +0.13, and beside it, the item automobiles, +0.87. The report does not explain how those two figures relate.
- Tutorial fees: +0.11
3 are listed as decreases.
- School fees: −0.44, and beside it, college and university fees, private, −0.44
- Recreational services: −0.38, with domestic package tours at −0.31
- Electricity: −0.31
Workers' households
Page 3 turns to one group among those households. The survey's term is 勤労者世帯; the Statistics Bureau's English tables call them workers' households. A reference chart on page 10 of the report puts them at 54.4% of two-or-more-person households, on the 2025 average.
- Income per household: ¥616,704
- Year on year, nominal: +1.3%
- Real, using the consumer price index excluding imputed rent of owner-occupied homes: −0.9%
- Real, using the all-items index: −0.6%
- Disposable income: ¥513,617, real change −0.8%
- Consumption expenditure: ¥331,134, real change −6.8%, with the remark "6th consecutive month of real decrease"
A note defines disposable income as income minus non-consumption expenditure such as taxes and social insurance premiums. The last row is the average propensity to consume: consumption expenditure as a share of disposable income. It reads 64.5%, against 68.6% a year earlier. The report prints the gap: −4.1 points. A remark adds that the seasonally adjusted figure is 59.8%, 3.2 points lower than the previous month.
What the report does not say
Three things this report does not tell you, and so we will not either.
- It does not say why spending fell. Its tables list items, not reasons.
- It gives no forecast.
- These monthly figures are for two-or-more-person households. The report's own schedule places single-person households in the quarterly and annual results.
What it does say is this. In August 2026, two-or-more-person households in Japan spent ¥310,975 per household. That was 1.0% less than a year earlier in nominal terms, 3.1% less in real terms, and, after seasonal adjustment, 0.1% more than July in real terms. The report calls it the 9th consecutive month of real decrease.
The report's schedule gives November 10, 2026 for the September figures. We will read it again.
Source
Statistics Bureau of Japan — 家計調査報告 －2026年(令和８年)８月分－, October 9, 2026: https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/file-download?statInfId=000040512978&fileKind=2
All figures are as printed in the report; amounts are yen per household for the month. English category names follow the Statistics Bureau's own English tables; other wording is our translation. The link is the copy filed on e-Stat, the government statistics portal; the Statistics Bureau's own "latest month" page is replaced at each release. This is a reading of a public document. It is not investment advice and makes no recommendation to buy or sell any security.