Recent days are quite heart-warming as well as significant to the 61 elder citizens of Xue Village, Chian Town. Without joining the social security plan, they received RMB 70 of old-age pension for the current month from the government. From this day on, up to 90,000 elder citizens over 60 years of age will be able to receive RMB 70 of old-age pension every month without contribution to the social security fund. The Party Secretary and the Mayor handed the deposit books to the elders. Although the chilly wind was blowing outside, it was very warm inside the room. Tens of elder representatives gathered in the village meeting room delightedly to attend the Launch Ceremony of Social Old-Age Pension for Urban and Rural Citizens of Yiwu City. “How old are you? How are you today?” “How is your life?” Around 11 a.m., Huang Zhiping, He Meihua, Chen Xiuxian, Wang Kuiming and other city leaders handed the deposit books of old-age pension accounts to the elders, and wished them good health and happy life. Besides promoting the development of economics in recent years, the city has been making efforts to proactively develop the social undertakings with emphasis on improving people’s livelihood, so as to let the people share in the fruits of development. Huang Zhiping, the Municipal Party Secretary, said that the Launch Ceremony of Social Old-Age Pension for Urban and Rural Citizens marked our steps forward in realizing the dream of “every elder being looked after properly” in our city. The establishment of social old-age pension system covering all urban and rural citizens of the whole city was an important policy benefiting the people as well as a livelihood project; it is another important measure taken after the achievement of full coverage of medical insurance for urban and rural citizen of our city in July, 2004, and also one of the ten practical livelihood measures planned by the city government this year, which fully demonstrated the Party and government’s care for people, especially elder citizens. Huang Zhiping required government agencies at town and sub-district level as well as all relevant departments to strengthen the policy advocacy leveraging the momentum of the launch ceremony, so as to encourage the people to join the social security plan; they should also accelerate the implementation of the policies to ensure that all eligible residents join in the insurance, so as to benefit the people and give full play to the effect of the social security policies. We would like to thank the government as we are freed from the worry of old age. After receiving the pension, Lu Fengyou, a 72-year-old elder citizen was moved to tears. From then on, he could buy some food and new clothes to live a better life. Lu Fengyou and his 68-year-old wife were childless and they depended on each other for survival. This is a low-income family. Last year, his wife contributed RMB 8,000 of premium to join the social security plan, so as to receive RMB 100 of old-age pension every month. However, they could not afford the fees to let both of them join the plan. Thus Lu Fengyou had never joined the social security plan. “I can receive old-age pension, too! It sounds like a dream!” said Lu Fengyou excitedly. Since then, he and his wife can receive another RMB 140 every month in addition to his wife’s RMB 100 of old-age pension and the low-income subsidy of around RMB 100, which is to say, they could receive a total of RMB 300 to 400 every month from the government. On the day of the launch ceremony, the 61 elder citizens of Xue Village received their deposit books. Another 113 elders who had joined the social security plan before had received their RMB 70 of basic pension directly in their own accounts instead of receiving new deposit books. According to the officials from Labor and Social Security Bureau of the city, the current basic old-age pension of our city is RMB 70 per month (RMB 60 per month in other counties of Jinhua), which will be adjusted along with the economic development and living standard improvement. All eligible elder citizens of the city will receive their first basic old-age pension before January 15.
