The government could work out specific measures to help the vulnerable even before they are pulled into poverty, says a signed article in Yanzhao Metropolis News. An excerpt follows:

At a forum on social security held over the weekend in Beijing, Vice-Premier Huang Ju stressed that the state would take measures to improve the social security system in an effort to ensure that all people, especially low income earners, could enjoy the benefits of social development.

Huang's remarks reflect the government's attention to improving common people's lives and protecting the less advantaged from financial and social risks, which could also boost public confidence in the social welfare system.

Besides the efforts to improve the social security system, another important task to the same effect is that the government could apply some solutions to bridge the income gap and prevent more of the population from entering the low-income group.

Currently, the low-income group in China is mainly composed of laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises, migrant workers in cities and farmers who lost their land in industrialization or urbanization.

The government should work out specific policies to improve their incomes and maintain their standards of living before they have substantial financial difficulties.

Many workers are dismissed when their enterprises are restructured. Their income, usually quite low, is fixed upon their dismissal and unlikely to change even after their former employers see huge improvements in revenue. If the government sees to that, the laid-off workers may expect better income.

Migrant workers are easily stricken by poverty because they are usually not covered by the insurance and subsidies they deserve as employees. Many are under-paid.

Many farmers who lost their farmland in urbanization also lost their source of stable income, for they did not get enough compensation for the land acquisition. Experts estimated that farmers usually get only 10 percent of all the revenues generated in land transference.

So, the effect would be remarkable in bridging the income difference if the government could work out some policies to prevent these vulnerable groups from dropping below the poverty line.

(China Daily September 27, 2006)