Record Corporate Profits, 30 Years of Falling Real Wages: Japan's ParadoxA · FULL TRANSLATION
- A new book asks why Japanese firms hit record profits while real wages fell for 30 years
- It points to the structural decoupling of corporate profit and worker income
- It reflects deep causes of Japan's distribution problem and weak domestic demand
A new book poses a sharp question: why have Japanese firms posted record profits while real wages have fallen for 30 years? It targets the economy's core paradox — the decoupling of corporate profit from worker income. As profits flow to shareholders, retained earnings and overseas investment rather than wages, the result is glowing corporate books alongside long-shrinking household purchasing power. This paradox is the deeper source of the food-inflation squeeze and weak domestic demand discussed elsewhere. For readers, it is a cautionary mirror: Taiwan faces its own low-wage and distribution debates, and Japan's 30-year 'rich firms, poor households' trap is a textbook case of failed sharing of growth's fruits. If growth doesn't lift real incomes, even dazzling earnings can't sustain a society's wellbeing.