Countryside pension scheme set for launch
- Source: Global Times
- [23:33 June 25 2009]
- Comments
By Li Xiaoshu
A new pension scheme will be tested in 10 percent of the nation’s counties this year to ease rural poverty and maintain social stability, the State Council said Wednesday at an executive meeting.
The meeting, presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao, specified that rural residents (except students and people with elementary pensions in urban areas) aged over 16 are eligible to join the program, and those aged over 60 will be able to draw the pensions, the Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.
The meeting also ordered local governments to strengthen the supervision of pension funds, the report said.
The announcement followed the No.1 document released by the Central Committee of the CPC in February, which proposed the establishment of a new rural pension system based on individual payments, group allowances and government subsidies.
The central government will subsidize 80 percent of the pensions in Western regions, 60 percent in Central areas and 20 percent in the East, according to CBN, a business media of Shanghai Media Group.
The lowest pension standard will be higher than the country’s average subsistence level of 1,800 yuan ($265) per year, Guo Jianjun, director of the Comprehensive Research Office in the Development Research Center of the State Council, said.
The preliminary scheme will be amended in line with test results.
Yang Yansui, a professor at the school of public policy and management at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times yesterday that although the scheme was designed to improve social welfare, the pension was not high enough.
“It is a big progress, but local governments should handle the personal assets in the pension fund well enough to prevent corruption and power abuse,” she said.
China launched a reform of the rural pension in 2007, after the 17th National Congress of the CPC proposed to establish an all-sided social security system covering both urban and rural residents by 2020.
Some 11.7 million farmers in 464 counties had joined the system by the end of last year, according to figures from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.
However, more than 100 million elderly people living in rural areas are facing pension problems and have to rely on their children for financial support, the Beijing News reported in February.
Fu Daxin, 70, a farmer from Qidong county in Hunan Province, said he committed a robbery at Beijing railway station in order to enjoy “good service” in jail, the report said.
There are more than 10,000 elderly people living in poverty across the county, it said.