Central Office, State Council: Improve the mechanism for adjusting the minimum wage standard and raise the minimum wage standard reasonably.

To further protect and improve people's livelihood, focus on solving the urgent needs and concerns of the masses, and promote the fairness, balance, inclusiveness, and accessibility of livelihood construction, the General Office of the Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council have issued the "Opinions on Further Protecting and Improving People's Livelihood and Solving Urgent Needs and Concerns of the Masses". The opinions propose strengthening assistance for low-income groups. Using a combination of big data comparison and on-site surveys, strengthen dynamic monitoring and early warning, and promptly include eligible people in the social assistance scope. Formulate methods for identifying low-income individuals and verifying the economic conditions of low-income families, carry out comprehensive identification of families on the edge of subsistence and families facing difficulties in basic expenses. Reasonably determine and adjust the minimum living security standard, link it to the per capita consumption expenditure of urban and rural residents, and effectively guarantee the basic living of disadvantaged groups. Strengthen the coordination between the minimum living security standard and other social assistance standards. Improve the mechanism for adjusting the minimum wage standard and reasonably increase the minimum wage standard. Develop a classification reference guide for the minimum wage of skilled talents. It also proposes to vigorously develop universal services for the elderly and children. Promote various channels to expand low-cost facilities for the "one elderly and one child" service in various regions. Support service organizations for "one elderly and one child" to provide quality-assured, affordable, and sustainable universal services. Improve the pricing mechanism for universal elderly care and child care services, and guide basic service fees. Focus on care for disabled elderly people, enhance the capacity of elderly care institutions to provide integrated medical and care services, increase the supply of nursing beds, and ensure that the proportion of nursing beds in new elderly care institutions is not less than 80%. The original text is as follows: Opinions of the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council on Further Protecting and Improving People's Livelihood and Solving Urgent Needs and Concerns of the Masses (March 2, 2025) In order to further protect and improve people's livelihood, focus on solving the urgent needs and concerns of the masses, and promote the fairness, balance, inclusiveness, and accessibility of livelihood construction, the following opinions are now proposed with the approval of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council. 1. Enhance the fairness of social security (1) Effectively expand the coverage of social security. Strengthen the main role of social insurance in the social security system, improve the social insurance system for flexible employment personnel, migrant workers, and new forms of employment, fully eliminate the household registration restrictions for participating in social insurance at the place of employment, improve the incentives and constraints for participation in insurance, improve the transfer and continuity mechanisms, and steadily and orderly increase the proportion of urban employed persons participating in basic endowment insurance and medical insurance for workers. Optimize the payment categories of basic endowment insurance for urban and rural residents, determine the subsidy level reasonably, increase the payment flexibility appropriately, improve the incentive mechanism for multiple payments and multiple benefits. Provide social insurance subsidies to eligible college graduates, people facing employment difficulties, etc. Improve the financing mechanism of basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents, promote the linkage of contributions with the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents, and increase the maximum reimbursement limit of serious illness insurance for those who are continuously insured and have zero reimbursement in the current year. Steadily promote the cross-provincial mutual assistance of individual accounts for basic medical insurance for workers. Continue to expand the eligibility for skills upgrading subsidies to include recipients of unemployment insurance. Support and guide localities to directly issue maternity insurance benefits to insured individuals. Strengthen the connection between social insurance and social assistance, social welfare system, accurately implement the policy of paying social insurance premiums on behalf of difficult groups, and enhance the risk resistance capability of low-income populations. (2) Strengthen assistance for low-income groups. Use a combination of big data comparison and on-site surveys to strengthen dynamic monitoring and early warning, and promptly include eligible people in the social assistance scope. Formulate methods for identifying low-income individuals and verifying the economic conditions of low-income families, carry out comprehensive identification of families on the edge of subsistence and families facing difficulties in basic expenses. Reasonably determine and adjust the minimum living security standard, link it to the per capita consumption expenditure of urban and rural residents, and effectively guarantee the basic living of disadvantaged groups. Strengthen the coordination between the minimum living security standard and other social assistance standards. Improve the mechanism for adjusting the minimum wage standard and reasonably increase the minimum wage standard. Develop a classification reference guide for the minimum wage of skilled talents. Implement action plans to help increase incomes for low-income populations in rural areas, establish a mechanism to help low-income families increase their income through labor in rural areas. Increase the implementation of industrial subsistence allowances, prioritize the absorption and support of low-income populations to increase their income through local employment. 2. Improve the balance of basic public services (3) Improve the quality and efficiency of basic public services in all aspects. Based on national basic public service standards, refine the list of basic service projects, basic quality standards, and evaluation methods for different regions and fields. According to the level of economic and social development and fiscal affordability, incrementally incorporate service items related to the vital interests of the masses into the national basic public service standards. Promote the coordination of basic public service supply with population changes, optimize the construction and operation management of service facilities according to the requirements of reasonable service radius, moderate scale, appropriate functions, and strong guarantees, and support the establishment of a mechanism for the coordinated use of existing public service facilities. Take county-level as the basic unit, comprehensively promote the integration of urban and rural public service planning layout, facility construction, resource allocation, and talent deployment, and support the provision of flexible basic public services for rural areas in remote and impoverished regions. Optimize the supply of basic public services, and prioritize the provision of newly added basic public services items that meet the conditions through government procurement services. Promote deep integration of digital intelligence technology with public services, accelerate information and data interoperability and sharing, and promote the cancellation of household registration restrictions for common services such as marriage registration nationwide, expanding the coverage of high-quality digital public services. (4) Implement the provision of basic public services by the place of permanent residence. Through methods such as direct provision by the place of permanent residence, cross-regional collaborative processing, and improving transfer and continuity, gradually adjust the provision of basic public services to be provided by the place of permanent residence. Promote the formulation of implementation measures for providing basic public services by the place of permanent residence in cities where populations concentrate, and promote the equal rights of agricultural transfer population with the same rights as migrant population in residential areas. Steadily promote the participation of flexibly employed personnel in the housing provident fund system. Support localities to coordinate funding channels, increase the supply of affordable housing, and guide and support social forces to operate long-term rental housing. 3. Expand the inclusiveness of basic livelihood services (5) Promote the optimization and improvement of education resources. Implement the action plan to optimize and improve basic education, expand the supply of existing quality primary and secondary schools and public kindergartens by tapping their potential and expanding capacity, and include weak schools in compulsory basic education in the improvement plan.Quality School Grouping Management or Trust Assistance. Gradually achieve the standardized construction of compulsory education schools in about 5 years. Construct, renovate or expand more than 1000 high-quality ordinary high schools, focusing on improving the basic teaching conditions of county-level ordinary high schools. Accelerate the expansion of the enrollment ratio of high-quality ordinary high schools, mainly allocating to junior high schools in the region based on student population, with a focus on rural schools. Promote the improvement and expansion of higher education, and reasonably tilt the additional higher education resources towards populous provinces in central and western regions. Support the establishment of new research universities and high-level Sino-foreign cooperative universities, gradually increasing the scale of undergraduate enrollment in high-quality universities. Fully deepen the integration of industry and education reform, guide universities to improve the mechanism for adjusting discipline professional settings in response to the needs of economic and social development, strengthen industry and enterprise practical training, support universities in developing "micro-major" programs for urgently needed skills in society, and enhance students' employment and entrepreneurship abilities. () Develop community services within reach of the masses. Strengthen the integration of various convenient service resources in the community, promote the multipurpose use of service facilities, improve embedded service facilities in the community, and provide one-stop convenient services. Support the integration of universal social services such as elderly care, childcare, household services, meal assistance, and disability assistance into the community, and allow operators that provide urgently needed services for the community to lease ordinary residential properties for service locations under the premise of ensuring safety and compliance. Make full use of social resources to develop elderly meal assistance services according to local conditions. Enhance community support for family education, establish accessible community public cultural spaces for the masses, and support community-wide mutual assistance services. () Improve the quality of diversified lifestyle services. Improve the public fitness service system for all, promote the construction of sports parks, fitness trails, and support the construction of social sports facilities, develop multipurpose sports facilities, and steadily increase the supply of sports facilities. Promote the integration of culture, tourism, health, and sports development. Actively promote the free or low-cost opening of small and medium-sized sports venues and community fitness centers with high utilization rates. Support eligible museums, libraries, art galleries and other cultural venues to open at night. Support regions with conditions to develop high-quality outdoor sports resources and projects, create high-quality outdoor sports destinations with excellent facilities, quality services, and rich events. Promote widespread reading, and establish accessible and efficient public reading facilities covering urban and rural areas. () Promote inclusive and shared development. Implement the principle of prioritizing children and child-friendly concepts in public policy formulation, public facility construction, and public service provision. Improve the daily care, basic medical care, rehabilitation, education rights protection, and social work capabilities of children welfare service institutions. Deepen the "Love of Mothers" care pairing, help solve practical problems such as the emotional care and safety of left-behind and vulnerable children. Improve policies for promoting youth development and provide more support for youth in studying, working, marriage, parenthood, and social integration. Guide and support the provision of dormitory and small-sized youth apartments that balance work and residence in affordable housing. Eliminate unreasonable policies that restrict the social participation of the elderly, support the promotion of the "elderly assisting elderly" service model, and develop diverse job opportunities suitable for older workers. Promote the development of elderly-friendly smart technology products and applications, and install elevators in multi-story buildings such as public facilities and residential buildings. Improve the adjustment mechanism for living subsidies for difficult disabled people, and establish basic services for prenatal examinations for pregnant women, encouraging eligible regions to vaccinate girls against Human Papillomavirus (HPV). Promote age-appropriate, elderly-friendly, and barrier-free transformations in urban and rural public spaces. Improve policies that support the development of families in terms of social insurance, social welfare, and taxation. Five, safeguard measures All relevant departments in various regions should implement the Party's leadership in the entire process of livelihood work under the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee, and implement this opinion in combination with the actual situation. According to the division of powers and responsibilities between central and local finances, give full play to the role of fiscal transfer payments in promoting equalization of basic public services. Increase the proportion of budgeted investment to support social services. Localities should strengthen the implementation of responsibilities, do their best within their capacity, optimize the structure of fiscal expenditures, strengthen the guarantee of basic livelihood, continuously improve key livelihood support policies in areas such as education, health, social security, employment, effectively safeguard the bottom line of livelihood. Improve the system of lists of livelihood projects at all levels of government. Strengthen the coordination of major livelihood policies across departments, focus on evaluating the social fairness perspective when assessing the consistency of macro policy orientation and the expected social impact. Scientifically evaluate the effects of livelihood policies, do not decompose and assess national-level expected livelihood indicators layer by layer, and avoid blanket assessments. This article is from "New.""GMTEight editor: Liu Xuan.Bonjour, comment a va?