Despite intense public attention and growing elite support, Beijing has stopped short of endorsing a substantial increase—yet advocates argue the terms of the debate have already changed.
Truly, these are heartening words. Raising pensions for farmers is not merely a moral imperative, but a policy that makes perfect economic sense.
For generations, Chinese farmers have sown the seeds of food security and social stability, often with little recognition or long-term security. To support them in their twilight years is to honour the labour that feeds a nation.
Just as every seed planted eventually yields a harvest, investing in the welfare of those who tend the land will repay society many times over—strengthening consumption, reducing inequality, and affirming that no honest toil ought to go unrewarded.
«The other covers urban and rural residents outside formal employment, including most farmers. Participants in that scheme made very little contribution, so its benefits are, in practice, dominated by the state-funded “basic pension.” Because that basic benefit has long been set at a very low level»
The equity issue is not as simple as that because since at least around 2010 the CPC has made food self-sufficiency a big priority and therefore has made very big improvements to farmer incentives and incomes, for example agricultural product prices in the PRC are twice as high as international prices, and the land tax which had been paid by farmers for over 2 thousand years has been completely abolished, plus houses have been donated to farmers and significant grants have been given to improve them, plus farmers have much, much lower costs for basic living than urban residents. Also for thousands of years farmers have relied on children as pension assets and as we all know the "one child policy" has only applied to formal urban residents and not to farmers.
As to equity there is also the problem of "very little contribution": the CPC is determined in the phase of socialist transition to avoid a welfare state, which is why "that basic benefit has long been set at a very low level".
The argument about the basic pension level therefore cannot be made easily about farmers, but it is easier to make it for the large numbers of migrant temp workers outside formal employment which have made as large or larger a contribution to the PRC service economy as farmers to the PRC agricultural economy, and often worked and lived in appalling conditions much worse than those of most farmers and with no home ownership and in precarious low-pay conditions that prevented any savings.
Unfortunately I guess like everywhere else middle-class do-gooders can easily get behind non-contributory pensions for heavily romanticized farmers but tend to ignore the nobodies who deliver their takeaways or clean their houses or build and staff the warehouses.
The argument to be made is that the "basic pension" is simply too low to avoid the dire poverty of many old people whether farmers or migrant temps (and especially the latter).
So what happens next, if the government decides it's time to do something? When is it possible for a bigger increase than the 20 yuan be implemented? (from a westerner trying to learn more about Chinese governance)
It is mostly a deliberate mixture of the singaporean political model with many elements from the China-Taiwan and the China-HK economic models. Indeed people from Singapore, China-Taiwan, China-HK work and live in China-PRC without many surprises (but I guess for the much larger varieties of languages and cultures in China-PRC, which often bewilders even China-PRC people who move to a different region).
Truly, these are heartening words. Raising pensions for farmers is not merely a moral imperative, but a policy that makes perfect economic sense.
For generations, Chinese farmers have sown the seeds of food security and social stability, often with little recognition or long-term security. To support them in their twilight years is to honour the labour that feeds a nation.
Just as every seed planted eventually yields a harvest, investing in the welfare of those who tend the land will repay society many times over—strengthening consumption, reducing inequality, and affirming that no honest toil ought to go unrewarded.
«The other covers urban and rural residents outside formal employment, including most farmers. Participants in that scheme made very little contribution, so its benefits are, in practice, dominated by the state-funded “basic pension.” Because that basic benefit has long been set at a very low level»
The equity issue is not as simple as that because since at least around 2010 the CPC has made food self-sufficiency a big priority and therefore has made very big improvements to farmer incentives and incomes, for example agricultural product prices in the PRC are twice as high as international prices, and the land tax which had been paid by farmers for over 2 thousand years has been completely abolished, plus houses have been donated to farmers and significant grants have been given to improve them, plus farmers have much, much lower costs for basic living than urban residents. Also for thousands of years farmers have relied on children as pension assets and as we all know the "one child policy" has only applied to formal urban residents and not to farmers.
As to equity there is also the problem of "very little contribution": the CPC is determined in the phase of socialist transition to avoid a welfare state, which is why "that basic benefit has long been set at a very low level".
The argument about the basic pension level therefore cannot be made easily about farmers, but it is easier to make it for the large numbers of migrant temp workers outside formal employment which have made as large or larger a contribution to the PRC service economy as farmers to the PRC agricultural economy, and often worked and lived in appalling conditions much worse than those of most farmers and with no home ownership and in precarious low-pay conditions that prevented any savings.
Unfortunately I guess like everywhere else middle-class do-gooders can easily get behind non-contributory pensions for heavily romanticized farmers but tend to ignore the nobodies who deliver their takeaways or clean their houses or build and staff the warehouses.
The argument to be made is that the "basic pension" is simply too low to avoid the dire poverty of many old people whether farmers or migrant temps (and especially the latter).
So what happens next, if the government decides it's time to do something? When is it possible for a bigger increase than the 20 yuan be implemented? (from a westerner trying to learn more about Chinese governance)
«trying to learn more about Chinese governance»
It is mostly a deliberate mixture of the singaporean political model with many elements from the China-Taiwan and the China-HK economic models. Indeed people from Singapore, China-Taiwan, China-HK work and live in China-PRC without many surprises (but I guess for the much larger varieties of languages and cultures in China-PRC, which often bewilders even China-PRC people who move to a different region).
«bewilders even China-PRC people who move to a different region»
From what I read even after 2,000 years the State of Chu is still particularly bewildering and mysterious to northerners :-).