By Ye Xingqing, Ning Xia & Yin Haodong, Research Department of Rural Economy, DRC

Research Report, No.289, 2020 (Total 6033) 2020-12-8

Abstract: During China’s poverty alleviation drive, the government has implemented a series of preferential guarantee policies for the registered poor population on education, medical care, pension and social assistance. These policies have provided basic guarantee and timely assistance for the poor, help them to participate in social insurance and encourage them to invest in human capital such as children’s education and medical care. The transfer payment from the government is the major source of income of the impoverished people, which plays a key role in winning the battle against poverty. But the implementation of preferential guarantee policies has also generated some new problems, which have exerted prominent pressure on financial expenditure of local governments and made some registered poverty-stricken households become inclined to rely on government assistance. The “cliff effect” induced by the policies has caused inequality and triggered complaints among the public. After the concluding period of poverty alleviation drive, related departments need to follow the principle of maintaining the overall stability of the current assistance policies, adjust contents of the policies in line with newly formulated policies, redefine beneficiaries covered by original policies and classify and adjust the preferential guarantee policies step by step.

Keywords: achievements of poverty alleviation, guarantee policies, the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025)