Tokyo’s Shinagawa Ward to Give ¥30,000 to Every Resident – Coronavirus Income Support

Shinagawa Ward in Tokyo announced on June 1st that it plans to give a cash handout of ¥30,000 (about $279) to every resident of the Ward, in an across the board effort to help people who may have experienced an income drop due to the economic fallout from the coronavirus. Every resident of Shinagawa Ward is eligible for the payment, including registered foreign residents. Junior high school students and younger will receive an additional ¥20,000, for a total of ¥50,000.

Japan’s national government is giving a handout of ¥100,000 to every registered resident of the country, but Shinagawa is one of the few municipalities that is supplementing that with an additional payment.

Shinagawa Ward currently has a population of about 406,000 people (with about 50,000 children who are junior high school-aged or younger), which means that the measure will cost about 13,550 million yen.

The amount  will be included in the FY2020 supplementary budget plan that is being put together under the tentative name of the “Shinagawa vitality support benefit”. It will be proposed to the Ward assembly in June, and if the budget is approved, it is expected that people who have a Resident Card with a Shinagawa address will be mailed applications starting in August to September. Applications will only be accepted by the Ward by mail, for social distancing reasons.

The Ward also plans to set up a way for people to donate their payment to support medical and welfare personnel on the frontlines of the coronavirus fight.

If you are a foreign resident of Shinagawa Ward with a Resident Card, you are eligible for the payment.

Sources: Nikkei newspaper, June 1, 2020 (in Japanese), Shinagawa Ward office announcement, June 1, 2020 (in Japanese)

Lead photo: Shinagawa Station, taken on July 19, 2011 via iStock


You may also be interested in:


Please enable Javascript to send comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.