>>902494>Many companies have integrated crowd service into their staffing strategies to reduce office costs and protect their core employees. It is not hard to imagine that this sometimes creates inappropriate pay rates for crowd workers. Employers can avoid providing employee benefits/insurance, which employers are supposed to provide to both regular and non-crowdsourced non-regular workers. This practice indicates a concrete step towards further flexibilisation of labour. This generates anxieties over remuneration and employment security among the majority of crowd workers. With health care and insurance already being so expensive, disposable income is extremely limited
>https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/05/09/national/cracks-forming-premium-based-health-care-system/Even then, we cannot fully recognize the full scope of poverty because you may as well be a non-citizen if you can't file a tax return in Japan
>In Japan, just as in many European countries, only those who expect a return will file a tax return, leaving the governments with only limited data on real income levels and poverty. This difference also precludes studies of poor relief, for the denominator – poverty – remains unknown at the detailed level. Therefore, as we attempt to replicate some of the studies for the U.S. we have to use proxies to get around data restrictions. (Poverty and Politics: Evaluating public assistance in Japan)But there is tons to know
>The main stipulations of the Constitution and the Livelihood Protection Law to the effect that the state will support the poor to sustain a reasonable livelihood continue to hold. But the law and its current interpretation also continue to emphasize the principle of supplementarity: one’s financial assets, capacity to work, benefits from other welfare programs (e.g., pension), and perhaps most critically, support from one’s family members all have to be exhausted first, before one may even apply for public assistance. Thus, poverty relief is explicitly meant to be the “last resort safety net” (MHLW 2005: 127). But gig workers do not have access to this safety net, because they are not actual workers. There has been no safety net allotted
>https://news.kuwaittimes.net/website/pandemic-reveals-hidden-poverty-in-wealthy-japan/>Around 40 percent of workers are in vulnerable “non-regular” jobs with lower wages and contracts that can be terminated easily. Many also struggle to access welfare. Yuichiro, who did not give his last name to AFP, said he was sent from one government office to another before being told assistance was only for those with children. “But there are lots of adults who aren’t able to eat,” he said.Income can vary between 30k YEN and 70k YEN depending if it is the main job.
>Perhaps the greatest cost to workers involved with crowd work is that of low pay for low-skilled participants. There are no data available indicating the average wages of crowd workers. Income from crowd work varies, depending largely on whether it is a worker’s main job. In cases where it is the main job, monthly income is typically around USD 664 (73,268 yen), whereas it is roughly USD 274 (30,249 yen) for those working as crowd workers alongside other work. While CrowdWorks advertises that common crowd jobs such as data inputting provide USD 9.2 (1,000 yen) per hour, many tasks advertised offer extremely low remuneration. Remuneration for the task-based crowd job of a 5-minute interpretation or translation is merely USD 1.4 (150 yen) and sometimes lower (Lancers, 2017).However, this does not take into the various living expenses needed per year
>Family of four estimated monthly costs: ¥528,032>Single person estimated monthly costs: ¥295,594>Japan is the 3rd most expensive country in Asia (3 out of 12)>Cost of living in Japan is more expensive than in 79% of countries in the World (17 out of 77)https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/country/japan 
