Pensions grow for nine consecutive years

This year, companies' retirement pensions continue to increase by 10%, which is the ninth consecutive year of growth after the first adjustment in 2005.

Tang Jun, Secretary-General of the Social Policy Research Center of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said, pensions continue to improve, on the one hand, the cost of living has risen, so China raises their pensions to help protect their basic living. Companies' retirement pensions have been lagging behind those pensioners in the government organs and institutions, so raising their pensions helps ease the conflict of interest caused by the "dual-track" pension system.

Will it be hard to pay the pensions in the future with the rising pension level? Balances of five social insurance funds amounted to 2.7 trillion yuan, of which the balance of the pension insurance fund has more than 1.9 trillion yuan.

Tang Jun said judging by the balance of overall situation, it will not be a big problem for the social insurance fund to pay pensions. "In the future, China will certainly continue to improve the pension insurance system to make it more sustainable in pension payments, so people do not have to worry about it too much."

In recent years, China has made great efforts to promote the social security system; it has largely achieved the full coverage of the basic endowment insurance for the elderly system for urban and rural residents, covering 790 million people. However, when people's demand for a basic social security system was solved in general, there was gradually a more diverse demand.

"At present, the total amount of migrant workers in China has reached 260 million. A large number of migrant workers were working outside their hometowns; their social security transfer across urban and rural areas and across regions has become very prominent". Tang Jun said that to cope with current situation, China needs to get on the path of conversion between the urban and rural social security system as soon as possible, and promote the rational flow of human resources.

Tang Jun added that to enhance fairness, it is necessary to achieve the full coverage of urban and rural populations, and gradually raise the overall level of social security. He also mentioned that to ensure sustainability, China should pay more attention to sustainable long-term stable running of the system, and address outstanding problems, but also to establish long-term mechanism.

Read the Chinese version:数字解读政府工作报告
Source:People's Daily