Japanese Real Household Income Falls for 5th Straight Month

In the latest piece of evidence that Abenomics is having the effect of suppressing real income and expenditure, new data out today reveals that real income (red line, right axis) is down 1.3% YoY and real personal consumption expenditure (blue line, left axis) is down 2.5% YoY. Keep in mind that these are statistics describing February data and thus are likely to continue to fall once the consumption suppressing VAT tax hike takes effect in April.