Bank of Japan survey: 58.2% say economy worse than a year ago
The September 2026 survey also found 42.8% expect conditions to worsen over the next year, against 49.9% in June, and 68.9% said prices had risen significantly.
AI illustrationThe Bank of Japan published the results of its 107th opinion survey of the general public on October 13. In this September 2026 survey, 58.2% of respondents said economic conditions had worsened compared with a year ago, down from 62.5% in the June survey. The share saying conditions had improved was 5.2%, while 35.9% said they had stayed the same.
The bank also reports a balance of these answers, calculated as the share who saw an improvement minus the share who saw a worsening. For present conditions it stood at minus 53.0 percentage points, against minus 56.7 in June and minus 45.5 in March.
Asked about the economy one year from now, 42.8% said conditions would worsen, compared with 49.9% in June, and 6.6% said they would improve, compared with 7.4%. The balance for this question was minus 36.2 points, after minus 42.5 in June and minus 18.3 in December 2025.
On household circumstances, 54.4% said they had become worse off than a year ago and 4.5% said they had become better off. Another 40.3% found it difficult to say.
Asked about prices, 68.9% said prices had risen significantly from a year earlier and 26.6% said they had risen slightly. For the year ahead, 34.5% expected prices to rise significantly, down from 40.5% in June, and 54.1% expected a slight rise.
The survey also asked about the bank itself. The share who said they knew that achieving price stability is one of its objectives was 30.3%, up from 26.2% in December 2025. For its 2% price stability target, measured by the year-on-year change in the CPI, 21.9% said they knew about it and 45.4% said they had never heard of it.
The share of respondents confident in the bank was 14.1%, the same as in June, and 29.4% were somewhat confident. A further 44.9% said it was difficult to say.
The survey ran from August 3 to September 4, 2026, among individuals aged 20 or older living in Japan. A sample of 4,000 people was drawn by stratified two-stage random sampling, and the survey was conducted by mail, with answers returned by mail or online. Of those, 1,972 people, or 49.3% of the sample, gave valid responses.