Japan Consumer Spending:

 https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210406/p2g/00m/0bu/031000c

Article

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's household spending fell a real 6.6 percent in February from a year earlier, down for the third straight month under the country's second state of emergency over the coronavirus pandemic, government data showed Tuesday.

Average spending by households with two or more people in real terms was 252,451 yen ($2,300), according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

The pace of decrease accelerated from a 6.1 percent drop in January and a 0.6 percent dip in December. The February reading was affected by a leap day in 2020, which is estimated to have pushed down this year's figure by 2.3 percentage points, a ministry official told reporters.

Ideas:

As the pandemic continues on there are, unfortunately, many people, even in Japan, who have either lost jobs, unable to find new jobs, or are related to businesses have have been hard hit by the pandemic.

As such consumer spending continues to drop and just because of the emergency measures.

While some of it might be related to less spending in pre-pandemic places, but some of it is related to either worried about the future or just trying to survive now.

As the pandemic continues, those who are affected the most will continue to reduce their spending except for the most essential items.

Article.

In terms of real seasonally adjusted figures, meanwhile, spending rose 2.4 percent from January, following a 7.3 percent fall in the previous month, with a remarkable decline in the number of daily new virus infection cases across the country in February.

The government declared its second state of emergency over the pandemic in early January for the Tokyo metropolitan area amid a third wave of virus infections that began in November, asking restaurants and bars to close early and people to refrain from unnecessary outings.

The measure was expanded to 11 prefectures within a week but later lifted in stages, with the step fully removed in late March.

Ideas:

There will most likely be sporadic increases in spending here or there but overall it most likely won't get back to any kind of pre-pandemic level in the near future.

Even as more of Japan becomes vaccinated, there is still a part of the Japanese economy that is not going to even get close to the pre-pandemic level and that is services and of course tourism. 

Both of those areas, especially tourism, might not fully recover until 2022 at the earlies.

Article:

The average monthly income of salaried households with at least two people edged up a real 0.1 percent to 535,392 yen, up for the first time in three months.

Household spending is a key indicator of private consumption, which accounts for more than half of Japan's gross domestic product.

Ideas:

It has to be remembered that the average monthly income is just an average. It doesn't say how many are above the average or how many are below the average.

And its doesn't say how many are receiving government assistance, both businesses and families that have been affected by the virus situation with the loss of jobs or the loss or business and or the loss of customers but barely hanging on as a business.

Yes consumer spending may be more than 50 percent of Japan's GDP, but again not all consumers do or are able to spend at the same rate as the pandemic has affected consumers, some a lot, and some maybe not at all.

Have a nice day and be safe!