On May 28th, at the press conference of the Third Session of the 13th National People's Congress, Premier Li Keqiang emphasized in earnest that China has "600 million low- and middle-income people and below, and their average monthly income is about 1,000 yuan." Public opinion at home and abroad is hotly debated. How to understand the monthly income figures that the Prime Minister is particularly concerned about?
First of all, we must realize that the average monthly income of 600 million people is about 1,000 yuan, which is for this population as a whole, including the average income of the employed population and the non-employed population such as the elderly and children. This means that some of them have incomes above 1,000 yuan, some have less than 1,000 yuan, and many have no income.
The clarification of the following three questions should help everyone to enhance their understanding.
How to understand the definition of resident income?
The National Bureau of Statistics uses the concept of "resident disposable income" when measuring residents' income, which specifically includes four sources of income: wage income, operating income, property income and transfer income. In 2019, the national per capita disposable income of residents is 30,733 yuan, and the proportions of the above four incomes are: 56%, 17%, 9% and 18%. This shows that wage income is only a part of residents' income, and the proportion of this part of income continues to decline. Even for low-income people, the net income from family operations such as net income from selling agricultural products, the net income from household transfers such as subsistence allowances, and the real income from households such as the converted income of farmers’ self-produced and self-used agricultural products cannot be reflected through the measurement of wage income.
In addition, the per capita income of residents is obtained by dividing the household disposable income by the family population, and the family population includes the employed population and the non-employed population. We often describe a family as having an old age and a small one. The dependents such as the elderly, children and students are all non-employed in the family. It can be seen from this that in terms of individual families, the wage income of the employed population cannot be equal to the per capita income of the entire family.
How to understand the income distribution of residents in my country?
Since the reform and opening up, with the continuous growth of the national economy, my country's residents' income has maintained a rapid annual growth of more than 8%, but at the same time the income gap between residents has also widened. This means that my country still has a considerable number of low-income people and relatively poor people. According to the sample survey data of households of the National Bureau of Statistics, the annual per capita disposable income of the lowest-income 20% households in 2019 is 7380 yuan, and the monthly per capita disposable income is 615 yuan; the annual per-capita disposable income of the lowest-income 40% households is 11579 The monthly disposable income per capita is 965 yuan. This shows that there are indeed more than 40% of the population in my country, and their average monthly disposable income is around 1,000 yuan. This is also a low-income group in our society.
If we look at the income distribution of residents by urban and rural areas, we can see that these low-income people are mainly distributed in rural areas. This is because there is still an urban-rural income gap that cannot be ignored in my country. Also according to the household survey data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the annual per capita disposable income of the lowest 20% households in rural areas is 4263 yuan, and the monthly per capita disposable income is 355 yuan. The annual per capita disposable income of the 60% households with the lowest rural income is 9334 yuan, and the monthly per capita disposable income is less than 800 yuan. This means that there are about 330 million people in rural areas with a per capita monthly income of less than 800 yuan.
Is the low-income population equal to the poor?
China will eliminate absolute poverty by the end of 2020, which is a solemn commitment made by the Chinese government to the world. Judging from the current process of poverty reduction, this goal can be achieved. It is worth noting that the “absolute poverty” mentioned here mainly occurs in rural areas at present, and needs to be referenced by the current absolute poverty standard. The standard of absolute poverty in rural areas in 2019 is about 4,000 yuan per capita annual income (that is, more than 300 yuan per capita monthly income). By the end of 2019, my country's poor population had decreased to 5.51 million. However, the number of people whose monthly income is between the poverty standard and 1,000 yuan is still not a small number. Although this part of the population is not an absolutely poor population under the current standard, it is still among the low-income people and needs our continued attention.
In short, China is a developing country with a per capita GDP of just 10,000 US dollars. Due to the uneven development between urban and rural areas and between regions and the large income gap, even after eliminating absolute poverty, the income of low-income groups will be raised. The level and alleviation of relative poverty will still be issues that China must implement in the future to implement the "six stability" and "six guarantees" and to pursue the improvement of the quality of social and economic development. (The author is a senior professor of liberal arts at Zhejiang University) (published in "Half Moon Talk", Issue 11, 2020)
Author: Li Shi