How to support people's livelihood during the anti-epidemic period
Yin Ming
The sudden outbreak of the new coronary pneumonia has brought shocks to China's economic and social development. Under strict epidemic prevention and control measures, how to make basic supplies of necessities, medical supplies, electrical water and heat stable, and key industries related to national economy and people's livelihood, such as food, medicine, basic industrial products, and basic public services, run orderly, allowing 1.4 billion people Is the basic livelihood guaranteed? Nowadays, a package of precise actual moves has landed intensively.
Ensuring employment and punching a combination of policies
Employment is the foundation of people's livelihood. From "six stable" to "six guarantees", employment ranks first. Since the outbreak, the central government has repeatedly emphasized ensuring the overall stability of employment, and ministries and local governments have taken multiple measures to strike a combined punch.
Aid to stabilize the post and come up with "real money". According to data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, from February to March, China has reduced or reduced social security expenses for enterprises by 232.9 billion yuan. As of April 19, unemployment insurance has returned 38.8 billion yuan. In the first quarter, accumulatively spent nearly 10 billion yuan in employment subsidies to support enterprises to absorb employment, workers ’self-employment and flexible employment.
In terms of ensuring the stability of employment for key groups, a subsidy policy to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to absorb employment is adopted for college graduates, the scale of recruitment of state-owned enterprises and institutions, the scale of recruitment of grassroots projects, and the scale of job placements are arranged. Approval of rural public welfare posts. Through the implementation of work-for-relief, it is expected that approximately 300,000 poor and detained labor forces affected by the epidemic will participate in the project construction at their doorstep, realizing an increase in employment income.
More efforts to secure employment are still gaining momentum. Lu Aihong, a spokesman for the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Affairs, said recently that the next step is to adhere to the implementation of the employment priority policy, increase support for job stabilization, and expand employment channels in various ways to promote the employment of key groups such as college graduates, migrant workers, and people with employment difficulties. Yan Pengcheng, director of the National Economic and Development Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that entrepreneurship and innovation will be used to promote employment and promote the development of new formats and flexible employment. Broaden the local employment channels of migrant workers, and give priority to the use of labor in poverty-stricken areas when resuming production.
Places are also accelerating deployment. When the Hubei Provincial Government held a special meeting on job security for residents on April 22, it emphasized that job security for residents should be taken as the primary goal and focus of the government's work, measures to stabilize employment should be comprehensively strengthened, and efforts should be made to do all jobs. Shenzhen held a special press conference on stabilization and employment promotion on April 26, and made 21 hard measures in the six areas of “unification, stability, security, care, promotion, and excellence”.
Speed up the pace of making up for shortcomings
This year is the year of building a well-off society in an all-round way and ending the "13th Five-Year Plan", as well as the year of a decisive battle against poverty. The difficulty of getting rid of poverty is getting harder and harder in the future. Coupled with the impact of the epidemic, all tasks are heavier, more demanding, and more difficult. To ensure the basic livelihood of the people, we must speed up the shortcomings on the bottom line.
Some video conferences on the economic situation of some provinces and cities held on April 23 emphasized the need to increase transfer payments to the grassroots, ensure the completion of the decisive battle to overcome poverty, and greatly expand the unemployment security to achieve the minimum guarantee and social assistance. A good price temporary subsidy mechanism will protect basic people's livelihood. The executive meeting of the State Council, held on April 21st, deployed to increase support for the poor, low-income people and unemployed people, requiring more targeted measures to increase basic livelihood security and support.
In response to the impact of the epidemic, a series of blockbuster policies have been intensively released by relevant departments. In order to increase poverty alleviation efforts, the Ministry of Finance and others made it clear that the new central government special poverty alleviation funds to be added in 2020 should be appropriately tilted to the regions that are heavily affected by the epidemic. Poverty alleviation projects that affect the completion of poverty alleviation tasks.
In strengthening the protection of people's livelihood, China takes the linkage mechanism of linking social assistance and security standards to rising prices as an important starting point. During the anti-epidemic period, the actual subsidies issued in various regions reached a total of 9.3 billion yuan. The “Notice on Further Improving Phased Price Temporary Subsidies” issued by the National Development and Reform Commission in conjunction with relevant departments clearly stipulates that from March to June this year, on the basis of existing protection targets, the scope of protection will be expanded to double the price temporary subsidies. It is expected to benefit more than 67 million people.
Zheng Gongcheng, president of the Chinese Society of Social Security, said that only by further improving the current policy and applying innovative thinking and pooling the efforts of all parties to cope with it can the people's livelihood problems caused by the epidemic be resolved as soon as possible. To protect people's livelihood, more comprehensive and precise policy measures are needed. We must use innovative thinking to open up new employment space, appropriately expand the scope of implementation of social insurance premium reduction and unemployment insurance stabilization and return policies, expand the coverage of social assistance and improve the level of assistance, while fully Mobilize market players and social forces. (Published in "Half Moon Talk", Issue 9, 2020)