Kyodo via Yahoo: Record 22.8% of households have no savings
A record 22.8 percent of surveyed households in Japan had no savings in 2005, up 0.7 percentage point from the previous year, according to a survey released Wednesday...The survey found financial assets held by households, such as savings, stocks and savings-oriented insurance policies, averaged 11.29 million yen, an increase of 770,000 yen from a year earlier. But the median amount of savings, which discounts the effect of huge savings held by affluent households, dropped 200,000 yen to 4.58 million yen. Among other findings, savings decreased from a year earlier at 46.2 percent of the households and increased at 20.5 percent.
