Create meetup in Tokyochevron_right
Select a place on the map to change the location.
I want to meet
Verified required?
want to meet at fmd_good Wildlife Reserve
want to meet at fmd_good Market Deli
explore Tokyo Guides
bar_chart Trends in Tokyo
How are young people surviving here?
Minimum wage in Tokyo is 1200 yen, which is about 9 US dollars an hour. Sure, many things are cheaper here compared to the US, but the minimum wage last time I checked in California was $17, nearly double.
They've said that Tokyo's stagnant economy, over such a long period of time, means that there's no real opportunities for average folk anymore. The path of sticking with one company for life, and having the confidence that after decades of service you would be provided with enough financial security to buy a home and start a family seems to be a long forgotten memory. Many young people will be stuck with minimum wage jobs well into their mid 30s or later, it seems.
How are young people coping with this? Seems a bit like a "lost generation".
One thing that doesn't get mentioned enough is how much the haken (dispatch/temp) system reshaped expectations. Plenty of people in their 20s and early 30s aren't even on the baito track, they're on rolling 3-month contracts through agencies like Persol or Randstad, doing the same office work as seishain for maybe 60 percent of the pay and zero bonus. The bonus is the killer, since a lot of seishain still pull 4 to 6 months of salary in biannual payments, which is how people actually saved for a down payment in the old days.
There's also a quiet regional split that outsiders miss. Tokyo minimum wage is 1,163 yen as of last October, but if you're in Aomori or Okinawa it's under 900, so the "just move to Tokyo" advice only works if you can stomach sharing a 2DK in Kita-ku with two other people. The people I know who seem least stressed either married someone with a decent job or inherited a family house outside the Yamanote loop and commute an hour each way. It's less a lost generation than one that's been quietly sorted into who has family backing and who doesn't.
What gets left out of this conversation is how much of the squeeze is about time rather than just money. A baito at 1,200 yen is survivable if you can stack 40 hours, but most places cap you around 28 to keep you off shakai hoken, which means your take-home tops out near 130k a month no matter how hard you hustle. So people aren't lazy or unambitious, they're structurally capped, and the only way around it is juggling two or three gigs across town, which then eats the transit money you just earned.
The other thing I'd flag is that Tokyo rewards people who arrived with a network. My wife's cousin got into a mid-size kensetsu company through a university seminar and he's fine, but the friends who came from outside the city with no alumni connections are the ones cycling through haken contracts. It's not purely a wage story, it's a who-you-know story, and that part feels more rigid here than in the US where you can at least cold-apply your way into something.
tbh the thing that never comes up in these threads is how much of the survival is digital. a lot of the 20 somethings I know barely touch the traditional job market at all. they do Vtuber stuff, sell on BOOTH, run small dropshipping or freelance design gigs paid in USD through Wise, and that USD income is the whole trick. earning even 800 bucks a month in dollars while living at your parents place in Saitama beats a 1200 yen baito shift by a mile.
the flip side is it's brutal and unstable. no shakai hoken unless you sort it out yourself, no pension years, and the moment the platform changes its algorithm or the yen moves the wrong way you're back to zero. I know a guy in Koenji doing okay on illustration commissions who still can't get a credit card or rent an apartment without his mom cosigning.
so it's less "lost generation" and more a split between people with a passport to dollar or euro income and everyone else stuck on yen wages. if you've got that US salary you're already on the winning side of the line, which is prob why it looks so strange from where you're standing.
load 3 more replies
Where can I find crispy, pan-fried bacon similar to a certain international style?
if u have a costco membership the kirkland thick cut is the move, 4 packs of 500g for around 2500 yen and it crisps up proper in a cold pan. for smaller runs, precce in azabudai hills & the basement at isetan shinjuku both carry imported US & danish brands in the chilled case, just read the label for "thick cut" or "smoked" and not "loin". also worth knowing japanese bacon is often wet-cured so pat it dry before frying or it steams instead of crisping
kaldi coffee farm is hit or miss but their smoked bacon from denmark shows up pretty regular, the 200g pack runs about 600 yen. what actually works better for me is asking the butcher counter at peacock or life to slice the block bacon thick, like 5mm, they do it for free and it crisps way better than the pre-packed stuff. also fwiw cheap bacon crisps faster, the fatty supermarket kind at 300 yen a pack works fine if u cook it from cold in a dry pan and pour off the fat as it renders.
tbh the gyomu super store brand bacon is surprisingly decent for crisping up, its not thick cut but if you cook it low and slow it gets pretty crunchy. the key is the dry cure vs wet cure thing, wet cure steams. also check hanamasa if you have one nearby, they sell big packs of american style bacon thats actually smoked and firm.