Does the Japanese Children and Families Agency receive an exaggerated budget to pay 6.34 million yen (42,534 USD) per baby? No, that's not true: The allocation of budget funds is clearly defined in the 2024 draft budget of the Children and Families Agency. According to the definition of the Children and Families Agency, the category of children includes every person under the age of 18, not just babies.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on February 28, 2024. It began (translated from Japanese to English by Lead Stories staff):
Abolish it [the Children and Families Agency] immediately and distribute it [the budget] to the population. Almost 6.34 million yen per baby? If you divide the annual budget of the Children and Families Agency of 4,810.4 billion yen by the number of births last year, a newborn child receives about 6.34 million yen.
As expected from the Liberal Democratic Party
Don't steal money
Damn you idiot
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Mar 12 09:59:14 2024 UTC)
The age classification of children (archived here) depends on various laws and regulations. The Child Welfare Act (archived here) of the Children and Families Agency defines children younger than 18 as individuals with the same human rights as adults. There are approximately 17,738,000 children under 18 according to the latest data from e-stat on October 1, 2022 (archived here).
If one divides the 2023 budget of 4.810 billion yen by the number of children under 18 it equals 271,191.79 yen per child per year. This is far below the 6.34 million yen per child of the claim. The Children and Families Agency's 2024 draft budget of 5.283 trillion yen (archived here), divided by the number of children, equals approximately 304,051 yen per child per year, which is also far below 6.34 million yen.
Furthermore, the key points of the 2024 draft budget break down the use of the budget and key measures. The budget for child allowances is only 1.524.6 trillion yen. The rest of the budget is earmarked for funding childbirth and child care support, higher education, improving conditions for nursery teachers, after-school care and various support services for families and children.
