Beijing, June 9 — In a significant move to tackle pressing public concerns, the Communist Party of China Central Committee has rolled out a new set of guidelines. The “Opinions on Further Ensuring and Improving People’s Livelihoods and Resolving Urgent Public Concerns,” jointly issued by the General Offices of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, were released to the public on June 9. The document outlines strategies in areas such as enhancing social security fairness, improving the balance of basic public services, expanding inclusive basic livelihood services, and increasing the accessibility of diverse social services.
Motivation Behind the Policy Rollout
Ensuring and improving people’s livelihoods during development is a crucial task of Chinese-style modernization. Since the start of the new era, China has achieved historic successes in livelihood construction, significantly enhancing people’s sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security. However, as the principal contradiction in Chinese society has evolved, there remain gaps and weaknesses in livelihood work. The public still faces numerous pressing issues in education, healthcare, elderly care, and other areas.
“On the new journey, livelihood construction requires a systematic and holistic approach, enhancing policy effectiveness through integrated efforts and responding to public needs with targeted measures,” said Wei Guoxue, a researcher at the Macroeconomic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission.
Four Key Principles for Livelihood Improvement
The guidelines focus on the most immediate and practical interests of the people, proposing four guiding principles: fairness, balance, inclusiveness, and accessibility. These principles aim to comprehensively address both urgent people’s wellbeing issues and long-standing, complex challenges, channeling more resources towards people-centered development.
Fairness: Equalizing Social Security
Prioritizing fairness in social security, the guidelines aim to expand coverage, eliminate household registration restrictions for social insurance participation at the workplace, and improve social insurance systems for flexible workers, migrant workers, and those in new employment forms. They also emphasize strengthening support for low-income groups and ensuring eligible individuals are included in social assistance programs.
To increase low-income group earnings, the guidelines suggest multiple policy measures, such as coordinating minimum living allowance standards with other social assistance, improving the minimum wage adjustment mechanism, and implementing development-oriented assistance programs for rural low-income populations.
Balance: Narrowing Urban-Rural Service Gaps
The guidelines stress the need to address unbalanced and inadequate livelihood development, advocating for an even distribution of public service resources. Taking counties as the basic unit, they promote the integration of public service planning, facility construction, resource allocation, and talent deployment between urban and rural areas. They also support flexible basic public service provision in remote rural regions and expand access to high-quality digital public services.
Measures include ensuring equal rights for eligible rural migrants, promoting housing provident fund participation for flexible workers, and increasing the supply of affordable housing, all aimed at enhancing the balance of basic public services.
Inclusiveness: Extending Benefits to More People
To meet the growing aspirations for a better life, the guidelines focus on introducing inclusive livelihood policies. By mobilizing government, market, and social forces, they aim to expand the supply of basic services in education, healthcare, and care for the elderly and children, ensuring quality, affordability, and sustainability.
Specific initiatives include constructing over 1,000 high-quality senior high schools, increasing higher education resources in central and western populous provinces, promoting urban medical resources to rural areas, and expanding inclusive elderly care services, among others.
Accessibility: Developing Community-Based Services
The guidelines prioritize improving the accessibility of social services by focusing on community-level development. They aim to provide convenient life services within walking distances, improve local facilities, and ensure inclusive services for children, youth, the elderly, and people with disabilities.
In response to the public’s demand for high-quality and convenient services, the guidelines propose measures such as free or low-cost access to popular sports venues, extended nighttime opening hours for cultural institutions, and increased supply of dormitory-style and small-sized youth apartments in affordable housing projects.
A Continuous Journey of Livelihood Enhancement
“Livelihood improvement is an ongoing process, with each step serving as a new starting point,” said Wei Guoxue. “These guidelines, with their comprehensive and forward-looking approach, outline the direction and key tasks for livelihood construction in the new era, injecting strong impetus into continuous well-being enhancement.”
Related topics:
