The time for the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference has begun, and the issue of elderly care has once again become the focus of attention for deputies, members, and the whole society.
Recently, several deputies to the National People’s Congress and members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference have put forward relevant suggestions and proposals. For example, Lu Qingguo, a deputy to the National People’s Congress, pointed out that currently, there are over 130 million elderly people in rural areas, and their pension is only about 200-300 yuan per month, which is far lower than that of urban residents. He suggested raising the basic pension for rural elderly people in stages: the short-term goal is to increase it to 300 yuan/month before 2026; the medium-term goal is to increase it to 500 yuan/month before 2030; and the long-term goal is to increase it to 800 yuan/month before 2035, in order to narrow the gap in pensions between urban and rural residents and enhance the sense of gain and happiness of farmers.
This suggestion on the “three-step” plan to increase rural pensions can be said to have once again touched the hearts of countless people.
In recent years, the issue of raising farmers’ pensions, after years of calls and preparation, has actually not been much controversial at the policy and social consensus levels. The key issue has long since been upgraded from “whether to raise” to how much to raise, how to raise, and whether it can be raised faster. Lu Qingguo’s suggestion is a very referential call.
Can the pace be even bigger?
In fact, there have been many preparations at the policy level to continue raising farmers’ pensions. For example, the “15th Five-Year Plan” proposal clearly states that the mechanism for determining and adjusting benefits should be improved, and the basic pension for urban and rural residents should be gradually increased. In addition, at the end of last year, the relevant responsible comrades of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission also revealed when interpreting the spirit of the Central Economic Work Conference that they would continue to increase the basic pension for urban and rural residents. These policy orientations and high-level voices should be said to have released a clear and positive signal for the continued increase of farmers’ pensions.
Another point worth noting is that the Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of last year mentioned, when deploying the key tasks of economic work in 2026, that a plan for increasing the income of urban and rural residents should be formulated and implemented. And for the hundreds of millions of rural elderly people, the most direct and effective way to increase income is to increase pensions.
This kind of increase, unlike industrial support, requires a cycle, nor is it limited by age like skills training. It is precisely a kind of income transfer payment that can accurately reach and take effect immediately. It is the fairest and most direct path to allow rural elderly people to more effectively share the fruits of development.
Therefore, the focus of current social discussion has actually shifted from the “necessity” of the increase to the “sufficiency.” Whether it is Lu Qingguo’s suggestion of 300 yuan, 500 yuan, and 800 yuan “three-step” plan, or the proposal put forward by some representatives to “gradually increase the pension of Chinese farmers to a level of 1,000 yuan per person per month from 2026 to 2030,” and even the broader public’s expectation of aligning with the minimum living allowance standards as soon as possible, they all point to the same appeal, that is, can the speed of the increase be faster, and can the pace be even bigger?
Comprehensive value, greater than the increase in pensions itself
The reason why it is necessary to accelerate the increase of farmers’ pensions is, first of all, due to an unavoidable pressure of institutional fairness. According to relevant statistics, plus local government subsidies, the average monthly pension benefits for urban and rural residents in 2024 will be about 246 yuan. While the average level of retirement pensions for enterprise employees during the same period is over 3,000 yuan, and for personnel in government and public institutions, it reaches over 6,000 yuan. In other words, there is a gap of more than ten times between the urban and rural residents’ pension, whose main recipients are farmers, and the employee pension.
This leads to a realistic problem, that is, even if the same increase ratio is maintained every year, the absolute benefit gap between urban and rural residents and employees is actually still widening, which may lead to a new “scissors gap,” continuously widening the gap in the quality of life of the elderly between different groups at the institutional level.
It is not difficult to imagine that when some people’s retirement pensions are enough to support leisure travel, others are still carefully calculating how to buy a few more catties of meat and a few more boxes of medicine each month. This gap is not only a matter of numbers, but also concerns the basic dignity of the people.
At the same time, the acceleration of the aging process also makes it quite urgent to increase farmers’ pensions. Currently, China has entered a moderately aging society, and the aging degree in rural areas far exceeds that in cities.
According to the data from the seventh national census, the proportion of the population aged 60 and above in rural areas is as high as 23.81%, far exceeding the 15.82% in cities.
It can be said that rural areas are the “main battlefield” of the elderly care problem and also the weakest link. And in the transition period when the family pension function is gradually weakening and the socialized elderly care system is still under construction, a substantial pension is the most solid “safety net” for the rural elderly.
It should also be seen that accelerating the increase of farmers’ pensions also has multiple social external values under the current social background.
First, it helps to form a “burden reduction” synergy with the constantly improving fertility support policies. After all, the burden of elderly care is negatively correlated with the willingness to have children. When the younger generation sees that their parents can spend their old age relying on a decent pension, they can also free up more psychological and financial space to raise the next generation.
Second, accelerating the filling of this most prominent shortcoming in people’s livelihood, farmers’ pensions, is also conducive to opening up new space for boosting consumption and expanding domestic demand.
It should be seen that, given the lower absolute value of income, the marginal propensity to consume of rural elderly people is actually very obvious. Once they have more money, whether it is to improve their diet and quality of life, or to increase investment in their grandchildren’s “intergenerational care,” it will directly translate into the most practical purchasing power, bringing new possibilities for tapping the potential of domestic demand.
Where does the money come from?
If the standards are significantly raised, where does the money come from? This is naturally an unavoidable “soul-searching” question. But according to the suggestions of experts, the paths in this area may be far more than imagined.
For example, not long ago, a suggestion by Zhang Zhongxiang, the founding dean of the Ma Yinchu School of Economics, sparked heated discussion: using the tax refunds from canceling or reducing the export tax refunds of some products to subsidize rural pensions. He calculated a sum: the current total export tax refunds nationwide reach 2 trillion yuan. If half of it can be transferred to rural pensions, the pensions of the elderly in rural areas nationwide can double.
In addition, some proposals also mentioned other reliable sources of funds. Such as institutionalizing the land revenue to support the system. Land is the foundation for farmers’ survival, and the revenue from land transfer fees should give back to farmers’ pensions in a larger proportion. It is entirely possible to extract a certain percentage of the net revenue from land transfer and inject it into a special pension fund. In addition, the normalization of state-owned capital transfer. State-owned enterprises that have grown and become stronger can allocate a larger proportion of their profits to the social security fund, especially to supplement the urban and rural residents’ pension insurance in a targeted manner.
This time, Zhang Xuewu, a deputy to the National People’s Congress and chairman of Yanjin Puzi Food Co., Ltd., specifically suggested that no less than 30% of the annual dividend income of state-owned enterprises can be specifically injected into the rural pension fund, and for central enterprises with annual dividends exceeding 50 billion yuan, the excess portion should be transferred at 50%, starting with a pilot program in 2026 and fully implemented in 2028.
There are also voices pointing out that it is necessary to establish a clear target management and dynamic adjustment mechanism to establish stable expectations for society. As proposed in this suggestion, quantifiable goals can be established in multiple steps, such as achieving a minimum standard of 800-1000 yuan for the basic pension of farmers nationwide by 2030. At the same time, establish a normalized adjustment mechanism that is “double-linked” with the growth rate of per capita disposable income of rural residents and the CPI to ensure that the purchasing power of pensions does not shrink.
From “investing in things” to “investing in people”
To a large extent, raising pensions for farmers is both an intrinsic requirement of morality and social fairness and justice, and an inevitable choice to adapt to the new stage of development and change the mode of development. The “15th Five-Year Plan” proposal states that it is necessary to “closely combine investment in things and investment in people.”
In the past few decades, Chinese society has been accustomed to large-scale infrastructure construction and industrial park development. These “investments in things” have laid the foundation for Made in China. And with the transformation of the main social contradictions, investing more resources in “people,” improving human capital, improving social security, and promoting the all-round development of people, is becoming more and more important.
In this transformation, the issuance of childcare subsidies and the increase of farmers’ pensions are specific manifestations of “investing in people.” If childcare subsidies are an investment in the “future,” then raising farmers’ pensions is a return to the “past” and a guarantee of the “present.” It is a compensation for the historical debt of the hundreds of millions of farmers who have paid public grain for decades and silently contributed to the country’s industrialization process, and it is also to strengthen the foundation in advance for the coming deep aging society.
Therefore, it is necessary to call for, on the new journey of the “15th Five-Year Plan,” that the increase of farmers’ pensions should bid farewell to minor adjustments and usher in a truly “milestone” leap. This is not only to increase the income of farmers, but also to strengthen new confidence and recognition for the future of the entire country.
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