Full Text: Report on the Work of the Government

5. Putting the people's interests first and striving to ensure and improve their wellbeing

We made expanding employment the top priority in ensuring and improving people's wellbeing and pursued a proactive employment policy.

Over the past five years, we allocated 197.3 billion yuan of employment funds to help targeted groups obtain employment and to improve vocational training and employment services. As a result, 28 million university graduates and 8.3 million urban residents having difficulty finding jobs found employment. All this kept the overall employment situation stable.

We made comprehensive progress in developing the social security system: A new old-age insurance system for rural residents and an old-age insurance system for non-working urban residents were established, and the basic old-age insurance system now covers both urban and rural residents. A total of 790 million people are now covered by different old-age insurance schemes. Basic pensions for enterprise retirees rose from an average of 700 yuan per month in 2004 to 1,721 yuan at present. We extended social security coverage to retirees of closed or bankrupt enterprises, employees of enterprises with operating difficulties, employees of state-owned enterprises who suffered work-related injuries in the past, and uninsured retirees of collectively owned enterprises.

We deepened reform of the medical and health care systems, established a new type of rural cooperative medical care system and a basic medical insurance scheme for non-working urban residents. A basic medical insurance system that covers the whole population is taking shape, and over 1.3 billion people are now covered by different medical insurance schemes. We improved community-level medical and health care services, and established a system for using basic drugs and implemented it in community-level medical institutions. Steady progress was made in the trial reform of public hospitals. People's health further improved, and the average life expectancy reached 75 years.

The systems for aiding needy rural and urban residents with subsistence allowances, medical care, education and legal assistance were improved. We reformed and improved systems for providing social security to orphans, helping and protecting homeless children, and giving childless and infirm rural residents assistance in the form of food, clothing, medical care, housing, and burial expenses.

We promulgated and implemented new programs for the development of Chinese women and children, and protected their legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law.

We established a sound government-subsidized urban housing system and extended it to cover 12.5 percent of the country's urban households by the end of 2012.

Historic achievements were made in developing the social security system. We strengthened and made innovations in social management, put in place a sound emergency response system, encouraged urban and rural communities to fully play their self-governance and service roles, and maintained social harmony and stability.