Japan's households in four surveys: price fears eased from June, gloom did not
Serguey Asael Shinder2 min readThe Bank of Japan published the results of its 107th Opinion Survey on the General Public's Views and Behavior on 13 October 2026. The survey was conducted by mail and internet from 3 August to 4 September; of 4,000 people aged 20 and over, 1,972 gave valid answers. Read on its own, one quarter of this survey says little. Read against the three previous rounds — December 2025, March 2026 and June 2026, all printed in the same release — it shows a June spike in price worries partly unwinding, while the mood about the economy does not recover.
Prices: still almost universal, slightly less intense. 95.5% of respondents say prices have gone up compared with a year ago (68.9% "significantly", 26.6% "slightly") — practically the same as in every round since December. The change is in expectations. In June, 40.5% expected prices to go up significantly over the next year; in September that fell to 34.5%, while "slightly" rose from 49.9% to 54.1%. Taken together, 88.6% expect higher prices a year ahead, against 90.4% in June and 86.0% in December. Expected unchanged prices rose from 6.7% to 8.5%.
The economy: the June shock has not been reversed. The diffusion index for present economic conditions compared with a year ago — "improved" minus "worsened" — stands at −53.0, a little better than June's −56.7 but well below March's −45.5. The outlook for a year from now is where the damage shows most: −36.2, after −42.5 in June, compared with −18.5 in March and −18.3 in December. Only 6.6% expect conditions to improve, the lowest share in the four surveys. Household circumstances are steadier, with the index at −49.9 against −50.2 in June.
The Bank's own visibility. 30.3% say they know that price stability is one of the Bank's objectives, up from 26.2% in December; only 21.9% know about the 2% target in terms of the CPI, while 45.4% have never heard of it. Confidence in the Bank is unchanged at the top — 14.1% "confident" in both June and September — but "somewhat confident" slipped from 30.7% to 29.4%, and the combined share is the lowest of the four rounds at 43.5%.
What the table supports, and what it does not. The numbers support a narrow reading: the jump in strong price expectations seen in June has partly faded, and expectations for the economy remain far weaker than in the spring. The release itself offers no explanation for either movement, and a survey answered by mail between early August and early September cannot be tied to any single event in that period.
Source: Bank of Japan, "Results of the 107th Opinion Survey on the General Public's Views and Behavior (September 2026 Survey)" — http://www.boj.or.jp/en/research/o_survey/ishiki2610.htm