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Revised social aid programs meet the challenge
2020-10-19 
A nomadic family on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau shares in the joy of one of its members after an operation to correct blindness, with funds that Laurence Brahm helped to raise. CHINA DAILY

Relief measures provided as COVID pandemic adds to difficulties faced

The massage shop Wu Shunyang runs with his wife is not only one of the few sources of earning for the blind couple, but also covers the tuition of their son, a sixth-grader, and daughter, who studies at a polytechnic school.

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced a nationwide lockdown earlier this year, the shop was forced to close. And after it reopened, it had few visitors. The family, who live in Dajin, a village in Yongan, Fujian province, sank into desperation.

Wu said that the family, which was included in the national poverty registration program in 2016, had invested virtually all their savings into the business two years ago, and local authorities also helped fund the undertaking with zero-interest loans.

They had just managed to pay off the loans at the end of last year.

"I felt downhearted every day. We could barely cover the daily necessities for a family of four," the 43-year-old said.

The government's social aid program scaled up its relief measures when Wu's family needed it most. They received a total aid package of 10,600 yuan ($1,585) from different government departments in recent months and saw their monthly relief package increased from 580 to 708 yuan per family member starting in July.

"I can't imagine how we would have gotten by without the welfare program during those months," he said.

As this is the final year in China's campaign to eradicate absolute poverty and build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the country has scaled up the coverage and intensity of aid packages for low-income groups to ensure the goals will not be compromised by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Broader safety net

In an article published in June in the Qiushi Journal, the flagship magazine of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, President Xi Jinping highlighted the need to refine the country's system of subsistence allowances as part of broader measures to fix the weak links in the anti-poverty campaign.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said measures such as social insurance, aid and welfare programs must be comprehensively applied to ensure adequate living standards for poor people who are unable to make a living.

He called for all poor people to be included in the basic health insurance network for rural and urban residents and insurance programs for major diseases and medical aid to prevent illness from driving people into poverty.

The ministries of finance and civil affairs said in a notice released in June that all eligible residents who have difficulty providing for themselves due to the pandemic must be included in the government's social aid program.

The expanded program must reach those who cannot find jobs or who saw their businesses shut down due to the pandemic, and authorities at various levels must step up monitoring of groups who could once again sink into poverty, the notice said.

There were 5.51 million rural residents who had not yet been lifted from poverty by the end of last year, and the COVID-19 pandemic has added to poverty by causing job losses and business closures.

China's tightly woven social security network-especially the social aid programs-is the last line of defense to ensure that the poverty alleviation goals will be met by the end of this year, said Li Xiaoyun, a China Agricultural University professor specialized in rural development and poverty alleviation.

"With China already able to build a basic security network for the most impoverished group, the COVID-19 pandemic will not affect the fundamentals of the poverty reduction campaign," he said.

Welfare package

By the end of last year, China had taken 43.17 million people into its network for minimum subsistence allowances, helped 4.69 million extremely poor people cover their basic expenses, such as food, housing and healthcare, and offered care and protection to 242,000 orphans, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

In 2019, the government provided 1.29 million aid packages to homeless people and offered 9.17 million people temporary subsidies, the ministry said.

In the first half of this year, the government added another 3.4 million people to social welfare programs and issued a temporary subsidy of 14.6 billion yuan for low-income groups as part of the expanded relief coverage, according to the ministry.

Jiang Wei, deputy director-general of the ministry's Department of Social Aid, said at a news briefing in July that with COVID-19 making life more difficult for the poor, the ministry has sought to further strengthen the social security network to minimize its impact.

For people who are ineligible for the social aid program but have lost their jobs and sources of income due to the pandemic, especially migrant workers, Jiang said the government has rolled out a one-time relief package to help them get through the difficult period.

"The issuance of the one-time package is not only part of the mandates for the country's temporary relief mechanism, but also an exploration into the system to coping with major public emergencies such as pandemics," he said.

The government notice in June also pledged to continue with aid policies for the poor even after their income levels grew to surpass the standards as recipients of the relief measures.

Wang Xiaojian, head of the bureau of agriculture and rural affairs in Sanming, to which Yongan is subordinate, said the social aid programs have served as a strong reinforcement to ensure the basic livelihoods of poor people who have lost all or part of their ability to support themselves.

"It has worked as an emergency help mechanism for needy families and functioned as a safety net for poor groups," he said, adding that the office has so far this year issued temporary relief packages totaling 1.39 million yuan to 2,397 poor families.

Even after families' incomes increase to a level where they were no longer eligible for the benefits, the program allows for a transition period of six to 12 months to prevent the recurrence of poverty, he said.

Reform guideline

In another indicator of the commitment of China's top leadership to ensuring the sustainability of social policies for low-income groups, the general offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council issued a guideline in August to reform the national welfare network.

The country will develop a tiered social aid program to determine which families require regular minimum subsistence allowances and identify those among the elderly, disabled and minors who require aid packages for the extremely poor, according to the guideline.

It also vowed to offer special social assistance to families and individuals whose lives have become difficult due to emergencies, accidents, major diseases and epidemics.

Lin Mingang, deputy head of the China Association of Social Security and a professor of social policy at Nanjing University, said the country's social security network is standing at a new starting point as the nation closes in on its goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects this year.

The guideline, a forward-looking, systemic top-level redesign of China's social welfare network, will bring better-developed social programs, further harness the results from the poverty alleviation programs and ensure the basic needs of the people are met, he said.

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