Read: What Old People Think About Love and SexBeing old in Japan kind of sucks these days. As VICE News reported last month, a huge share of the population is over 65, and old folks across the country are struggling to make ends meet. For the first time, elderly people are more likely to commit crimes than teenagers, and as funding for pensions gets spread increasingly thin, retirees have less and less to fall back on when they leave the workforce.To make matters worse, now government officials are scaling back on a long-standing tradition of gifting each of its centenarians a silver sakazuki, or flat sake saucer, meant to congratulate them on being old as hell and acknowledge their contribution to society.The government is looking to replace the fancy silver saucers with some crappy plastic jobs, or maybe even just a nice letter, the Japan Times reports.The gift program has increasingly become a financial burden for Japan. Back when the program started in 1963, the country only sent out 153 of their commemorative silver saucers, which cost about $64 a piece. The government is now searching for cheaper options after last year's gift—delivered to almost 30,000 people—set them back about $2 million.No matter what the government decides to hand out, whether it be a plastic replacement saucer or a measly paper letter from the Prime Minister, it looks like they'll be doing a lot more gifting in the years to come. Demographers expect 39,000 people to turn 100 in 2018, and by 2060, 40 percent of Japan's population is expected to be 65 or older.Photo via Flickr user MrHicks46
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