The health ministry plans to let single-parent households on welfare own a car, health minister Keizo Ueno said, relaxing a rule that has long assumed recipients can reach work and school without one.
Households receiving seikatsu hogo (seikatsu hogo) — public assistance that tops up income to a minimum standard — are in principle barred from owning a vehicle. Exceptions have been allowed where public transport is unavailable or a household member has a disability.
Ueno said the ministry is sorting out when a single parent may keep a car for commuting or for driving children to and from school, and intends to present the cases it settles on.
“We are considering organizing and presenting the cases in which single-parent households and others may be permitted to own a car, for commuting and for transporting their children.”Keizo Ueno, health, labor and welfare minister
The ministry frames the change as a way to encourage welfare recipients to become self-supporting. It is still working out what purposes would qualify and other specific conditions, and will inform local governments once they are decided.
Municipalities administer welfare payments and decide individual cases, so the conditions the ministry sets will determine how much room local offices have to approve a car. Outside the cities, where buses and trains are thin, a vehicle is often the only way to hold a job or get a child to a clinic.