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.