Japan's child poverty rate eases but 1 in 7 children remains poor

Yeah, it's really tough when you are paying over 40% of you salary in taxes. Income tax, city tax, aged care tax, local land tax and the rip-off pension. That is what makes it tough!

No child should go hungry in a civilized nation, as I am sure they do in households living below basic economic standards. It is shameful of the government in any country where the population is treated in such a way that this would come about....

households living on less than half the national median household disposal income

If this is how poverty is defined, poverty can never be eliminated unless Japan moves to a far more regulated economy where government regulates all wages to set them at the same level, and also controls how much people in each household work to ensure that all households make similar incomes.

it is often difficult to tell whether a child is in poverty just by looking at their belongings.

That's because the definition is one of relative poverty, as opposed to absolute poverty. 

A person in poverty in Japan according to this definition may be far far better off than a middle class person in a country with a much lower median household disposable income.

As children's age advanced, the rate of working mothers increased but the majority held nonregular jobs.

If the mother does have a spouse who is working then she may opt not to work full-time simply because the household is financially comfortable, so what's the point of this observation?

the average household income rose 1.6 percent from 2012 to about 5.46 million yen ($49,000) and that for households raising children increased 5.1 percent to around 7.08 million yen.

Not clear what the median income is, but if it were half of 5.4 million that would be 2.7 million. Pretty low. I think I used to earn a bit more than that when I first started living in Japan as a youngster with no family. I do believe I was paying income tax etc, even on that low income.

If we are saying that such people are living in poverty, does it make sense to be taxing them? Probably we shouldn't be.