I’m Saito, the column writer♪
Where can I find the new store’s website?
And I have a question: Maezawa-san’s data was really informative. Yes.
Upgrading to Black at this year’s renewal… sounds great! Everyone has the freedom to choose their profession, and a man’s income can change at any time.
Also, even if you start making more money, it’s hard to enjoy yourself if you lose your freedom or aren’t physically and mentally healthy.
Please tell us about your experiences again sometime.
Maezawa here.
Normally, this is a Q&A box, so I found myself wondering, “Why is this a random comment instead of a question?”
But I’ll interpret it—perhaps a bit forcefully—as asking:
“‘A world that has absolutely no interest in someone like me’—isn’t the income requirement unreasonable? Couldn’t it be lowered somehow?”
That’s how I’ll answer.
(If that wasn’t what you meant, feel free to ask again.)
An annual income of ¥40 million or more…
That’s a pretty high hurdle, isn’t it?
There was an article from 2015 that said:
“Regarding the issue of inequality discussed by Thomas Piketty in *Capital in the Twenty-First Century*, it became a minor talking point when the author said on television that, in Japan, an annual income of ¥13 million puts you in the top 1%.”
In Japan, earning ¥13 million or more puts you in the top 1%.
The article also said that this figure was already common knowledge among researchers, and that they were surprised people were surprised by such an obvious fact.
(The top 1% shown in Piketty’s book refers to individuals among the population aged 20 and over whose income falls within the top 1%. It includes people who don’t work and have no income—it isn’t the top 1% among people receiving salaries.)
Incidentally, the top 1% in the United States earned $370,000 a year, which was about ¥44 million at the exchange rate at the time. (At today’s exchange rate, that’s roughly ¥40 million.)
In Japan, the annual income thresholds are ¥32.61 million for the top 0.1% and ¥80.57 million for the top 0.01%.
So I wonder whether the intention was originally to create:
- The Universe, for outstanding men in Japan’s top 1%
- The newer service, for those in Japan’s top 0.1%
If so, perhaps the income requirement should have been ¥32 million or more, rather than ¥40 million.
The figures above include both men and women, so I looked into what the numbers would be for men alone.
According to a page that calculated income levels by salary bracket based on the National Tax Agency’s 2017 “Statistical Survey of Actual Status for Salary in the Private Sector,” the figures for men alone are:
- ¥10 million or more: 6.91% (2.03 million people)
(4.48% when men and women are combined)
- ¥25 million or more: 0.44% (130,000 people)
(0.28% when men and women are combined)
The total number of men was 29.357 million.
Since the data didn’t list figures for annual incomes of ¥40 million or more, it’s difficult to make a direct comparison.
Personally, though, I can’t help thinking that men earning ¥25 million or more already represent the top 0.44% in Japan, so perhaps the requirement could be set at ¥25 million or more.
But rather than making it more mainstream—although an annual income of ¥25 million is hardly mainstream—it may be better to position it as a special place that only a very small number of people can enter.
Targeting a niche is common sense these days!!!
