Welfare spending explodes as Japan ages

With the most rapidly aging society in the world – a quarter of Japan's population is already over 65 – welfare is the biggest and fastest-growing category of spending.

TOKYO: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is poised to raise Japan's sales tax, but this bruising political decision leaves unresolved the bigger and much more complicated task of curbing runaway social-welfare spending.

The tax hike, Japan's first serious move in nearly two decades to rein in the worst debt burden in the developed world, looks like the easy part.