Referring to “grants in money,” Sontoku Ninomiya once said, “Such help only induces avarice and indolence, and is a fruitful source of dissensions among the people … poverty must be made to rescue itself” (excerpted from Representative Men of Japan by Kanzo Uchimura). The number of welfare recipients reached a record high of 2,170,000 in 2015, exceeding the number during the post-war reconstruction period, and public funds spent on welfare have increased to 3.8 trillion yen. The system should be reformed to incorporate incentives that encourage people to become independent and to pull themselves out of poverty.