Towards the road of common prosperity: the rise of social construction and people's livelihood expenditure

Abstract: Since 2000, China has gone through a "golden age" that is similar to the construction of people's livelihood protection similar to the 1960s and 1980s. At present, China has built the world's largest social security and housing security system, and the popularization of compulsory education has reached the world's average national average. The main health indicators are generally better than the average national average of the medium and high -income countries. China has obviously across the threshold of the "low welfare" country. The proportion of people's livelihood expenditures in GDP is close to the level of developed countries around 1980, becoming an absolute subject of public expenditure. The role of the central government in terms of livelihood security is also increasingly significant. China is building a new type of people's livelihood protection system jointly responsible for multi -level government.

Keywords: social construction of people's livelihood expenditures in the transformation of the central and local relations

Author Jiao Changquan, Assistant Professor of the School of Marxism at Peking University (Beijing 100871); Dong Leiming, a professor at the School of Social Sciences of Beijing Normal University (Beijing 100875).

Source: "Chinese Social Science" 2022, No. 6 P139 — P160

Editor in charge: Li Lingjing Liu Xiangying

Common prosperity is the essence of socialism, the common expectations of the people, and an important feature of Chinese -style modernization. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee has grasped the new changes in the development stage, putting the gradual wealth of all peoples in a more important position, and creating good conditions for promoting common prosperity. Now, it has reached the historical stage of solidly promoting common prosperity. Realizing common prosperity is not only economic issues, but also a major political issue of the party's ruling foundation.

At present, the main contradictions of our society have transformed into the contradiction between the people's growing needs and imbalance and inadequate development. The construction of people's livelihood protection is an important part of the effect of effectively responding to the changes in the main contradictions of society and moving towards the road of common prosperity. At present, China has obviously across the threshold of the "low welfare" country. The proportion of people's livelihood expenditures in GDP is close to the level of developed countries around 1980, becoming an absolute subject of public expenditure. During the "Fourteenth Five -Year Plan" period, China is expected to meet the current high -income national standards, and the level of people's livelihood protection will also be further improved. Since 2000, China has gone through a "golden age" for people's livelihood protection, and is currently in the critical period of "from You to Outstanding".

However, the academic community's understanding of the Chinese people's livelihood security system has long been affected by the "production/development" welfare model for a long time, and then lacks a general trace of the leap development of Chinese people's livelihood protection in the past 20 years. The change also lacks the awareness of the deserved. To this end, this article attempts to use the dynamic evolution of the level of people's livelihood to evolve into the core, and conduct a general review of the construction of people's livelihood protection since the 21st century. At the same time Real challenge explains. Studies have shown that the role of the central government in terms of people's livelihood protection is increasingly significant, and China is building a new type of people's livelihood protection system jointly responsible for multi -level government.

1. Research issues and theoretical background

(1) Welfare countries and social protection: the big transformation of the Western world

After the rise of capitalism in the Western world, the nature and functions of the country have always been an important issue for scholars. Classical political economics represented by Adam Smith believes that the government only needs to bear the minimum public functions, such as national defense, public security and administrative management. With the increasingly prominent social problems brought by capitalism, people's views on national functions have also changed a lot. For example, Marxist doctrine believes that the development of capitalism has made the society increasingly differentiated into two major social groups, bourgeoisie and proletariat. There are irreconcilable contradictions between them, and class struggles between the two will destroy capitalist orientation.

German economist Wagner and other earlier distribution of wealth re -distribution as a general function of the government. Wagner advocates that in the industrialized country, the state must not only assume legal (police) and national defense responsibilities, but also bear social welfare responsibilities to a greater scope. Through the implementation of social policies, we must actively respond to various social contradictions in the development of capitalist development. As a sociologist in the same period as Wagner, Weber also believes that "cultivating health, education, social welfare, and other cultural concerns" is the basic function of modern countries, and in traditional society, these functions are "non -fixed temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary group".

Under the influence of these theoretical doctrines, in the late 19th century, Germany took the lead in establishing social insurance such as medical care and work injury. Since then, some western countries have followed the pace of Germany and have established social insurance and social welfare systems such as medical care, work injury, pension, and unemployment. After World War II, under the influence of Keynesianism, governments of various countries attached great importance to the construction of a social welfare system. Benefits the "welfare country". It can be seen that with the development of industrialization, the "residual" social welfare model (Residual Model), which is the main body of family and communities as the main body, is difficult to cope with many new social issues, and the centralized "institutionalized" social welfare model (Institutional Model) Improved.

Polandin summarizes this process. He pointed out that human economic behavior is embedded in social relations. However, a spontaneous market economy requires all economic elements such as labor, land and other economic elements from the social entities embedded in its embedded social entities, and become a production tool for fully serving capitalism and freely flowing. This will inevitably hurt the society itself Unity and integration. Therefore, the self -protection of society will be carried out simultaneously with the expansion of the market. The capitalist development since the industrial revolution has shown a "two -way movement" of market expansion and social protection. Poland responds to the social protection movement, and the process of getting rid of and transcending the spontaneous adjustment of the market is called "big transformation". Marshall and others explain the political meaning of the welfare country more directly. In their opinion, the growth of welfare countries is essentially the result of the awakening of citizenship awareness and the expansion of democratic elections. Social welfare is only a new "social contract" reached between the country and citizens. Marshall believes that citizenship is composed of three parts: citizenship, political rights, and social rights. Citizen rights start first, political rights follow closely, and finally social rights. The so -called "social rights" in Marshall is the right to obtain relatively consistent basic education, medical care, social security and other social welfare rights from the country. Therefore, they also call the country's social expenditure in social welfare as "rights" expenditure to reflect the characteristics of social welfare as a citizen rights.

(2) People's Livelihood Guarantee and Social Construction: Chinese Practice and Chinese Story

In deep, the concept of "welfare country" and "social protection" comes from the ideological traditions of duality between countries and society in the modern political philosophy of Western modern political philosophy, which essentially preset the dominance between the country and citizens -resistance. The academic circles have performed the social welfare theory under the perspective of "social contracts" and "social rights", and tried to find a corresponding relationship between the development of welfare countries and the so -called democratic election system, which instructed a concept of strong ideology and color colors. System and analysis framework. Not only that, the concept of "welfare countries" is often directly linked to the Nordic high -welfare countries. "Social protection" is also related to the concept of "social movement" from time to time, which is very easy to cause confusion and misunderstanding. To this end, China usually adopts the concept of "people's livelihood guarantee". "People's Livelihood" is the people's life, which is similar to the meaning of "Well-Being" commonly used internationally. At the same time, China also replaces the concept of "social protection" with "social construction". Strengthening the protection of people's livelihood is an important policy and measure for China to move towards the road of common prosperity, and guaranteeing and improving people's livelihood has always been the focus of social construction. Regarding the issue of people's livelihood protection, there are two representative views of the academic circles.

First of all, the academic community generally believes that similar to other East Asian countries and regions, China is also a "production/development" social welfare system. Its main feature is to pursue the balance between economic development and social welfare. The main goal is to serve the economy Development, so it can also be called a "economic growth" model of "low welfare". For example, the "low benefits" of workers are considered an important source of the "comparative advantage" of the Chinese economy, and the call for workers to call on social security and citizen rights has also become an important concern for labor research within a period of time. Before the reform of rural taxes and fees, education The lack of people's livelihood protection such as medical and health is an important manifestation of the "three -rural crisis". Farmers are expensive and difficult to go to school. Therefore, the "economic growth" model of "low benefits" summarizes the Chinese people's livelihood security system within a certain period of time after reform and opening up.

However, in the process of promoting the reform of the market economy, China has also reformed and rebuilt the people's livelihood protection system. Especially in the 21st century, the protection of Chinese people's livelihood was able to develop, and in the short term, it basically got rid of the "low welfare country" situation. The academic community has begun some discussions on this major change from different perspectives. However, how to conduct a overall analysis of the level of people's livelihood protection and its dynamic evolution since the 21st century, and then make more accurate judgments on the current level of people's livelihood guarantee and its development stage, it still needs to continue to explore in the academic community.

Secondly, another basic consensus on the Chinese people's livelihood security system is: China's people's livelihood security system has a high degree of "decentralized/regional" characteristics. Little responsibility is an important reason for the differences in the level of people's livelihood. In fact, this view has largely ignored the major role of a large number of fiscal transfer payments in the 21st century in terms of guarantee and improvement of people's livelihood, and narrowing the gap between people's livelihood guarantees, which has obvious misunderstanding of the livelihood guarantee system.

Since the 21st century, the scale of the central government has become increasingly larger and large in local fiscal transfer payment. One of the main goals is "protecting people's livelihood", which will inevitably lead to major changes in the central and local people's livelihood protection systems. Although a few studies have paid attention to this change, these studies have basically misunderstood China's special fiscal budget and calculation system, and then cannot accurately explain the mechanism of the financial transfer payment in local people's livelihood protection. The existing research is basically interpreted from the final accounts of fiscal expenditures. It is found that local governments still bear more than 95%of people's livelihood expenditure responsibilities, and then believe that China is still a typical "decentralized/regional" people's livelihood guarantee system. However, in fact, the central government's budget, local government expenditure and final accounts on local financial transfer and payment, whether general or special transfer payment, injects clear policy intentions, the main aspect is "protecting people's livelihood". Therefore, 95%of people's livelihood expenditures incorporated into local government expenditures and final accounts, most of them are already clearly injecting financial transfer payments into the central intent. They are just "local expenditures", which is essentially "central expenditure", which is particularly obvious in the central and western regions. Obviously, how to effectively promote the understanding of the above two issues has become the key to understanding the issue of Chinese people's livelihood.

(3) Research issues and analysis ideas

Western scholars generally refer to the government's public expenditure in social welfare as "Social Expendosition", and use social expenditure to accounted for GDP to measure the level of social welfare development in one country. China adopts the concept of "people's livelihood expenditure". The "people's livelihood expenditure" was first appeared in the budget report submitted to the National People's Congress on behalf of the Central People's Congress on behalf of the Central Committee of the Ministry of Finance in 2009. Cultural expenditures are called people's livelihood expenditures.

Following this path, scholars have analyzed the level of Chinese social welfare. For example, Gu Xin and Meng Tianguang defined the scope of social expenditure as the government's budget and total expenditure of social insurance funds in the budget of education, medical care and family planning, social security and employment, and housing security. A systematic analysis of the social expenditure level from 1990 to 2013 was conducted. Overall, there are still two obvious insufficient in these studies. First, they failed to reach an agreement on the scope of Chinese social welfare expenditures. However, education, health care and family planning, social security and employment, and housing security are part of these calculations, which is basically the same as the main content of the people's livelihood expenditure proposed by the Ministry of Finance. Different scholars have different views on whether social insurance funds should be included in the social field expenditure. However, social security funds are the main body of social security expenditures. Internationally, social insurance funds have been incorporated into it, so they should be included. Secondly, they failed to start a complete and accurate explanation of the dynamic evolution of the level of Chinese social welfare spending since the 21st century. For more than two decades since the 21st century, it is the critical period of China's people's livelihood guarantee construction. It is of great significance to carry out overall review from the dynamic evolution of the livelihood expenditure level.

In summary, "people's livelihood expenditure" is still the most appropriate concept of consolidated photography that summarizes the level of social welfare expenditure in China. In this article, it specifically includes four types of expenditures: education, medical and health and family planning, social security and employment, and housing security in general public budgets. At the same time, related expenditures such as social insurance funds and government funds The level of people's livelihood expenditure.

2. The "golden age" of social construction and people's livelihood protection

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, after the three major socialist transformation and agricultural cooperation, my country established a socialist planned economic system. Urban residents mainly obtain various people's livelihood guarantees through unit systems. Whenever social benefits such as employment, medical care, education, housing, and pensions are borne by the units where the residents are located. The unit is both an economic production organization and a consumer distribution and social welfare units. "Unit welfare system". The "three -level, team -based" "people's commune system" is established in rural areas. The production team is the most basic production and consumption distribution unit. The people's livelihood protection of farmers is mainly borne by the production team collectively. The unit system and the people's commune system have basically covered all the people, so it can also be said that a livelihood security system that is almost covered by the whole people has been established. Because the protection level was relatively low at the time, it was also called "low -level welfare countries" or "small welfare countries".

Compared with the traditional local society, during this period, the state initially began to bear greater responsibilities for the people's livelihood protection of ordinary people. At home and abroad, it is basically agreed that after the founding of New China, China has achieved remarkable achievements in rural basic medical care and education, providing key human capital for the economic development after reform and opening up. However, as an overall political and economic system, the unit system and the people's commune system are integrated with political, economic and social functions, which has led to inefficient and weak incentives in the management process. This is also the direct factor of the economic system reform.

After the implementation of the liability system for the family coalition production, the original people's livelihood security system was greatly impacted. After the 1980s, the basic livelihood protection of rural people's livelihood mainly relied on farmers themselves, and national public financial investment was limited. In the 1990s, farmers' burdens were increasing, and the "three -rural crisis" was quickly formed, and the rural people's livelihood security system was in trouble. For example, after the reform, the original rural cooperative medical system was basically disintegrated, and rural education was maintained by raising funds from farmers. Farmers were expensive and difficult to go to school. In cities, the main goal of system -based unit system represented by state -owned enterprises is to improve the operating efficiency of enterprises. In the 1990s, the central government established the reform goal of the socialist market economy system. The main idea of ​​the reform of urban units is a series of people's livelihood guarantee functions undertaken by the units. These functions are either assumed by the state's reinstallation of the public system or directly pushed to the market and individuals. In specific practice, due to the tension of the state, the reform of state -owned enterprises basically pushed a large number of social functions directly to the market, and the state only assumes extremely limited relief responsibilities, which has greatly affected the level of people's livelihood protection in urban residents.

Entering the 21st century, the construction of Chinese people's livelihood security has entered a new period. After the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the new central leadership of the Central Committee collectively proposed the concept of governing the country such as "scientific development". Social construction has become the main content of the overall layout of socialism with Chinese characteristics. China has ushered in the era of "social policy." At the same time, with the continuous and stable growth of the economy, the system effect of the tax division system has been fully released, and the national fiscal capacity is increasing, which has provided a strong guarantee for the large -scale investment in public financial into the people's livelihood. During this period, whether it was cities or rural areas, a series of social construction measures focusing on ensuring and improving people's livelihood were quickly launched. In particular, the central government promoted the reform of rural taxes and fees in a timely manner, and public finance began to cover the countryside on a large scale. The state directly took over a large number of people's livelihood guarantee expenditures.

After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Central Committee continued to promote the construction of people's livelihood, especially the integration of the system and the coverage of the whole people. For example, since 2012, the central government has promoted the integration of urban and rural residents' basic medical insurance and basic pension insurance systems, and has effectively promoted the overall planning and fairness of urban and rural residents in basic medical care and basic pension. At the same time, the social security system also moved from "wide coverage" to "full coverage." In 2012, my country held a national unified social security card of 340 million, with a coverage rate of 25.2%. By the end of 2020, the number of cardholders had exceeded 1.3 billion, and the coverage rate reached 94.6%.

At present, China has built the world's largest social security system. Basic medical insurance covers more than 1.3 billion people, and basic pension insurance covers nearly 1 billion people, covering 91%and 95%of the personnel. In 2019, the per capita life expectancy of Chinese residents reached 77.3 years, and the main health indicators were generally better than the average national level of medium and high -income countries. In 2020, the average educational years of the labor age population in my country were 10.8 years, and the popularity of compulsory education reached the world's average national average. At present, China has built the world's largest housing security system. As of 2020, the people in more than 200 million urban difficulties improved the conditions of housing; the security capacity of public rental housing was enhanced, and households in urban subsistence allowances and low -income housing difficulties should basically be guaranteed; Poverty -stricken groups live in safe housing, and the safety of rural poverty housing has been resolved historically.

It can be seen that from the perspective of the construction of people's livelihood, more than forty years since the reform and opening up can be divided into two stages. From the beginning of reform and opening up to the end of the 20th century, it was the first stage. In the 1980s, after the rural implementation of the family co -production contract responsibility system, the original livelihood protection system was impacted; in the 1990s, the rural areas have experienced the "three -rural crisis", and the livelihood protection is also in trouble. In the 1990s, the central government accelerated the pace of the reform of the urban economic system. The people's livelihood protection system based on the unit system changed. Many social functions originally undertaken by the unit were also stripped. By the turn of the century, the people's livelihood protection of urban and rural residents was obviously insufficient.

The beginning of the 21st century is the second stage to the present. During this period, rebuilding a new type of people's livelihood security system became a key part of economic and social development. In the late 1990s, in the process of promoting the reform of state -owned enterprises, the central government had begun planning a new social security system, but due to limited financial capacity, the social security system was not effectively established. After 2000, after more than 20 years of efforts, China quickly established a people's livelihood guarantee system that covered the entire population and the life cycle, and the level of people's livelihood protection was significantly improved. For more than 20 years since the 21st century, it can be known as the "golden age" of Chinese social construction and people's livelihood protection.

Third, the rise of people's livelihood expenditure

(1) Change of the role of people's livelihood (2000-2020)

At present, there are four budgets in China: general public budgets, government fund budgets, social security fund budgets, and state -owned capital operation budgets. The total of the four budgets is basically the government's full -caliber fiscal revenue and expenditure. In 2000, the proportion of education, medical and health and social security expenditures accounted for 8.4%, 2.92%, and 16.56%, respectively, totaling 27.88%(see Figure 1). After 2000, the proportion of educational expenditure has not changed significantly, hovering between 9%-10%for a long time; medical and health expenditure accounts for rapid increase, from 2.92%to 9.07%in 2020; social security expenditure accounts for proportion of proportion It continued to grow in fluctuations, from 16.56%to 21.8%in 2020. In 2017, the proportion of people's livelihood expenditures was close to 40%. After 2017, the proportion of people's livelihood expenditures has declined slightly, mainly due to the sharp expansion of government funds in recent years. Although there are a large number of people's livelihood expenditures, the current statistics are difficult to identify meticulously, which has led to significantly underestimated people's livelihood expenditure. In comprehensive consideration, the proportion of public expenditures in 2020 should be about 45%of public expenditures, and the increase of about 17 percentage points in 20 years has become the real subject of public expenditure.

In 2000, the proportion of education, medical care and social security expenditure accounted for 1.76%, 0.61%, and 3.47%, respectively, only 5.84%of GDP (see Figure 2). After 2000, the proportion of educational expenditure accounted for GDP has been rising slowly, reaching 3.94%in 2012, but then slightly decreased in fluctuations, 3.58%in 2020; %; Social security expenditure accounted for GDP's proportion also increased rapidly, accounting for only 3.47%in 2000, and 8.64%in 2020. In 2020, the total proportion of GDP has reached 16.21%, an increase of more than 10 percentage points from 2000, and an average annual increase of 0.5 percentage points.

In fact, the above -mentioned full -caliber accounting still underestimates the actual situation. In terms of educational expenditure, it does not include budget arrangements such as government funds for education. If all these are included, the national fiscal education funding for fiscal education was 4290.8 billion yuan in 2020, accounting for 4.22%of GDP, which is 0.64 percentage points higher than the above calculation. The situation of other years is similar to this. In terms of medical expenditures, some typical public expenditures have not been included in accounting. For example, there are some typical other typical medical and health expenditures in the social hygiene expenditure in the total health expenses of government funds. In 2015, according to the final accounts of 745,700 national budget units, the annual medical expenditure reached 2775 billion yuan, which was more than 600 billion yuan higher than the above accounting. Social security expenditures are also similar. The most typical is the construction of affordable housing. During the "Twelfth Five -Year Plan" period, general public budgets accounted for the proportion of affordable housing construction investment, and the highest year was only 50%. Therefore, the proportion of leaks of funds in the annual leakage of affordable housing construction accounted for GDP. There is also a special housing provident fund, which is also a typical housing security expenditure. In 2018, the annual deposits of housing provident funds in the country reached 2105.5 billion yuan, and the housing consumer category withdrew 1171.8 billion yuan, accounting for 1.3%of GDP.

It can be seen that the most important omissions in the aforementioned accounting are the livelihood expenditures in government funds. Since 2015, the role of government funds in four budgets has become more and more important. In 2015, the government fund budget expenditure was 4234.7 billion yuan, an increase of 11799.8 billion yuan in 2020, about 2.8 times in 2015. This mainly came from the rapid increase in land transfer income and local government special bonds. In 2015, state -owned land transfer revenue was 3078.3 billion yuan, and in 2020 reached 8414.2 billion yuan. The revenue of state -owned land transfer was an important source of people's livelihood construction such as local affordable housing. In 2015, local government special bonds were only 100 billion yuan, and in 2020 reached 3750 billion yuan. Minsheng expenditure was the focus of its support. For example, as of the end of August 2019, new special bonds that have been used in various places that year were used for the construction of affordable housing such as shed reforms 623.8 billion yuan, accounting for 39.2 %. 3.3 %. In 2020, the scale of local government bonds was as high as 3.75 trillion yuan. If it was calculated at 40%, it was used in the fields of people's livelihoods such as affordable housing, science, education, and health, as many as 1.5 trillion yuan, accounting for 1.48%of GDP.

In summary, in 2020, the actual proportion of civil lives in GDP should be 3-4 percentage points higher than the previous calculations. The actual actual is about 20%, which is about three times that of 2000. Obviously, 20 years in the 21st century, whether it is the absolute proportion of GDP from people's livelihood expenditures, or the relative proportion of people's livelihood expenditures in public expenditure, people's livelihood expenditures have risen significantly, becoming the absolute subject of public expenditure. This is the central government that the central government has continued to promote society. Construction and the result of the rapid development of people's livelihood protection.

(2) Simple international comparison

At the end of the 19th century, Western industrialized countries began to build a social welfare system, which promoted the growth of social expenditure. But until the early 1960s, the scale of social expenditure in these countries was still very limited. Since then, with the rapid advancement of the construction of welfare countries, the scale of social expenditure has expanded rapidly. Tanzi and Schbercht's research on 17 major industrialized countries found that the expenditure used by the government for cash subsidies and transfer payment in 1960 accounted for 9.7%of GDP. Social expenditure. In 1970, the proportion rose quickly to 15.1%, and in 1980 reached 21.4%. Within 20 years, its proportion of GDP has increased more than doubled, and the proportion of total public expenditure has increased from one -third to about 50%. Lindert's research on 21 major economic cooperation and Development Organization (OECD) countries also found that in 1960, social expenditures in these countries accounted for 10.41%of GDP, increased to 14.84%in 1970, and 20.09%in 1980. Of course, the scope calculated by these two research institutes is not exactly equivalent to three expenditures: education, medical care and social security. In order to compare more accurately, we only spend only in the three categories of education, medical care and pensions: In 1960, the three in major industrialized countries accounted for 10.4%of GDP and 20%in 1980. It can be seen that from 1960-1980, the construction of Western welfare countries experienced a period of expansion, and the proportion of social expenditure accounted for GDP basically, with an average of about 20%.

Since the 1980s, developed countries have adopted reforms to try to reduce social expenditures. However, the scale of social expenditure has not declined significantly and is still growing slowly. For example, according to the latest data from OECD, it can be seen that if the national scope and data diameter studied by Lindert can be seen, although the proportion of social expenditures of these countries has fluctuated slightly since 1980 Nearly 25%, an average increase of 4-5 percentage points from 1980, but basically stopped growing after 2010, and some countries have decreased slightly.

It can be seen that at the beginning of the 21st century, China experienced a historical process similar to the Western industrialization country from 1960 to 1980. In 2000, the proportion of Chinese people's livelihood expenditures should be slightly lower than the average level of Western countries in 1960. But after entering the 21st century, the proportion of Minsheng expenditure accounted for GDP rapidly: Around 2005, the proportion of Minsheng expenditure accounted for GDP was roughly equivalent to the level of about 1960 in Western countries; in 2020, Minsheng expenditure accounted for about 20%of GDP. It is equivalent to around 1980 in Western countries. At present, although the level of Chinese people's livelihood is still a certain distance than developed countries, it is significantly higher than most emerging industrialized countries, reaching the average level of the current OECD country. "Low Welfare" national threshold. During the "Fourteenth Five -Year Plan" period, in order to solidly promote common prosperity, the state will further supplement the shortcomings of people's livelihood protection, and the level of people's livelihood expenditure will be further increased; 50%, the gap between the two and developed countries will be further reduced.

Fourth, central and local fiscal relations

For a long time, the academic community usually believes that China's people's livelihood protection system has a high degree of "decentralized/regional" characteristics. Local governments have assumed the responsibility of the main body expenditure in the protection of people's livelihood. This is also an important reason for the inequality of social welfare in the region. However, this view ignored the important role of the central government's livelihood protection in local people's livelihood since the 21st century, and also misunderstood the central and local financial relations in the current protection of people's livelihood.

(1) Minsheng expenditure in special transfer payment

At present, the important source of local fiscal expenditures is the special transfer payment of the central government, and the expenditure of people's livelihood is its main component. The central government's local special transfer payment is mainly concentrated in weak areas such as education, medical care, social security and other weak areas. Since 2007, four types of people's livelihood expenditures: education, medical care and family planning, social security and employment, and housing security have accounted for the minimum of nearly 30%in the total transfer payment amount, up to 40%(see Table 1 1 (see Table 1 1 To. In fact, this also clearly underestimated their proportion in special transfer payment. The main reason is that the central government puts a large number of people's livelihood "quasi -special transfer payment" on general transfer payment, such as the transfer payment of urban and rural compulsory education transfer payment, basic pensions and minimum living standards, and urban and rural residents' medical insurance transfer payment. But in fact, they are special funds with clear specified use, and have previously been budget management in special transfer payment. If these three items are included in the special transfer payment consideration, the proportion of people's livelihood expenditure accounts for about 50%of the total transfer payment, and it has continued to rise since 2009, reaching 53.22%in 2015. At the same time, the proportion of agricultural and forestry and water expenditure accounted for the central government's special transfer payment, which is basically more than 25%each year, and some of the typical livelihood expenditures. Obviously, the central government has obvious "protecting people's livelihood" characteristics of local special transfer payment.

In the above -mentioned people's livelihood, the proportion of central government transfer payment accounted for significantly. Since 2009, the proportion of the central government's special transfer payment has been above 20%of local social security and employment expenditure, and in 2015 reached 25.64%(see Table 2); the proportion of local medical and health expenditures was It is about 50%, and it has declined significantly after 2011, but it has been maintained between 20%-30%; the proportion of local education expenditures has always been more than 11%. Basic expenditure accounts for a large proportion (mainly teachers' wages), and this is mainly based on local budget expenditures, and the proportion of special transfer payment is not low. From 2010 to 2012, the proportion of special transfer payment accounted for local housing security expenditures increased from 37.14%to more than 50%, and in 2013-2015, it also maintained above 45%. In total, the proportion of the central government's special transfer payment accounts for more than 25%of local people's livelihood expenditures. Not only that, we also need to pay special attention to regional differences. More than 80%of the central government transfer payment points to the central and western regions, the special transfer payment of people's livelihood is more oriented to the central and western regions, while the eastern region is mainly solved through local budgets. Therefore, the proportion of special transfer payment accounts for people's livelihood expenditures in the central and western regions will definitely be significantly higher than the national average. For example, if 80%of the people's livelihood transfer payments are allocated to the central and western regions, 20%of them are allocated to the eastern region for calculation, from 2010 to 2015, the proportion of the central government's special transfer payment accounted for the people's livelihood expenditure in the eastern region stabilized at 14%-15%. In the middle, the proportion of the central and western regions is stable between 33%and 35%. It can be seen that from the perspective of the country, more than a quarter of local people's livelihood expenditures rely on the central government's special transfer payment, and the central and western regions are as high as one -third. Special transfer payment has become the main source of people's livelihood expenditures in the central and western regions. Moreover, the more poor areas and the grass -roots governments, this trend is becoming more and more obvious.

(2) General transfer payment to the bottom of local people's livelihood expenditures

In some central and western regions, especially deep poverty areas, due to the low ability of local fiscal self -sufficiency, most fiscal expenditures rely on superior fiscal transfer payment. In this case, although some people's livelihood expenditures are budgets by local governments, the actual source is still generally transferred by superiors.

Take the county -level government as an example. At present, county -level governments are the absolute subject of local fiscal expenditure, but the financial self -sufficiency capabilities have always been at the lowest level among local governments, and more than 50%of fiscal expenditure rely on superior transfer payment for a long time. Especially in the central and western regions, more than 60%of the county -level fiscal expenditure rely on superior transfer payment, and it is still increasing year by year, reaching more than 70%in 2009. After obtaining general transfer payments, the county -level financial self -sufficiency capabilities are less than one -fifth of the county. Obviously, general transfer payment has played an important role in improving the financial self -sufficiency of the county -level government, which is particularly critical in the central and western regions.

In terms of fiscal budget management, the general transfer payment is mainly calculated to the local government in accordance with the "Factors Law". Generally, it will be issued in advance, and local governments will be included in local public budget coordinated arrangements. The primary task of local governments is to "keep operation". The basic expenditures of institutions and institutions need to be guaranteed first. A large one is a large -scale basic expenditure of education, medical and health and other departments, and the adjustment of salary transfer payment in general transfer payment is originally important to the salary of the staff of the local government agencies and institutions. Assure. Being able to achieve "keeping operation" keeps the subject of people's livelihood expenditure. Followed by "protecting people's livelihood". In addition to basic expenditure, the necessary repair and reconstruction in the livelihood protection must be done, and the basic social security network must be maintained. These are rigid expenditures that need to be preferred. In addition, if there are financial resources, some developed project expenses can be budget.

Generally speaking, even if the tax return is obtained, less than half of the county's self -sufficiency in the country in the country is less than 30%. These counties' own financial income can only maintain basic operation at most, and some of them can not be maintained. All kinds of "work expenditures" are basically derived from superior fiscal transfer payment, and people's livelihood expenditures are no exception. In other words, in addition to the special transfer payment, general transfer payment has also become the main source of local people's livelihood expenditures. Although the local government's overall budget is arranged to people's livelihood expenditures, it actually comes from the superior fiscal transfer payment.

(3) The central adjustment of the endowment insurance fund and the nation's overall planning

Beginning in 2018, the Central Government issued a centralized system for the basic endowment insurance fund. The proportion of the central government in 2018 was 3%, increased to 3.5%in 2019, and 4%in 2020. From the perspective of the upward solution and dialing system of the adjustment fund, the above solution quota is mainly determined by the average salary of employees in the province and the number of insureds should be insured. Therefore, the main factor of determining the difference between the upper and lower dial -up quota is the average salary of employees in the province, which is essentially a special transfer payment of a special nature of the economy -developed provinces on the economically underdeveloped provinces.

In 2020, the total scale of the national adjustment fund reached 740 billion yuan. Guangdong, Beijing, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Shandong seven provinces (cities) are regions of the adjustment fund, with a total solution of 176.7 billion yuan. ; Others are the provinces. Among them, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Hubei, and Jilin provinces have allocated more than 10 billion yuan, and the remaining provinces ranges from hundreds of millions to billions of yuan. It can be seen that Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning and other old industrial bases in Northeast China have more pensions and expenditure pressure, which is the focus of centralized subsidies. In 2022, my country has officially implemented the national overall planning of the employee's basic endowment insurance funds, and the balance of balance in different regions will expand significantly. (4) Simplified somewhat

From the perspective of national fiscal expenditure, the local government does assume the main responsibility of people's livelihood expenditure. Since 2010, local educational expenditure accounts for more than 94%of local expenditures each year, medical and health expenditures have been as high as 98%, social security and employment expenditure are more than 95%. Essence Therefore, many scholars believe that China's people's livelihood guarantee system still has a high degree of "decentralized/regional" characteristics. However, the previous analysis shows that with the large -scale increase of the central government's financial transfer payment, the local people's livelihood protection has clearly began to bear important responsibilities. So, why do local governments still bear more than 95%of their expenditure responsibilities from financial statistics? This is mainly related to China's fiscal budget system. The central government has clearly injecting policy intentions for local fiscal transfer payment. The important goal is "protecting people's livelihood", which is greatly reflected in general and special transfer payment. However, fiscal transfer payment is counted as local expenditures in fiscal final accounts, which cannot reflect the central intent. Although 95%of the livelihood expenditure from local expenditures, most of the funds have clearly injecting fiscal transfer payments into the central intention. Its form is local expenditure, which is essentially central expenditure. Therefore, if it is only that China is still considered to be a highly "decentralized/regional" people's livelihood guarantee system, it will obviously misunderstand the actual situation. At present, the function of the central government in the protection of people's livelihood is becoming more and more obvious. China is building a new type of people's livelihood protection system jointly responsible for multi -level government.

Fifth, people's livelihood guarantee to the new development stage

At present, my country has entered a new stage of development in a comprehensive construction of a socialist modern country. "All the people have achieved more obvious substantial progress in common prosperity" are important goals of the new stage of development. However, as a large country with a wide range of people, China is facing the problem of imbalance in development, which brings many challenges to the people's livelihood guarantee system. The most typical manifestation is how to deal with the following three major relationships.

(1) Central and local

In the 21st century, the role of large -scale fiscal transfer payment in the central government has become more and more prominent in local people's livelihood protection. Especially in the central and western regions, fiscal transfer payment has become the main source of local people's livelihood expenditures. At present, the central government's proportion of local fiscal transfer payment accounts for more than 80%of the central government's fiscal revenue, and the proportion of national fiscal revenue is more than one -third. One of the main parts is the financial funds of people's livelihood. The central adjustment of the basic endowment insurance fund and the national coordination of the country have expanded the fiscal transfer payment from general public budgets to the scope of social insurance funds, further enhanced the central government's responsibility in people's livelihood coordination. The central government's fiscal transfer payment and pension funds in the central and western regions are essentially the process of transferring fiscal revenue from the eastern region to expenditure in the central and western regions from the eastern region. Therefore, the central government's local fiscal transfer payment system is not only a regulation of the central and local fiscal relations, but also the coordination of fiscal relations between the eastern and central regions.

At present, Minsheng expenditure accounts for about 20%of GDP, most of which are budget expenditures in the form of fiscal transfer payment, which has a great challenge to the financial relations between the central and local, east, and the central and western regions. The central and western regions of the central and western regions are directly derived from the financial from the central region from the eastern region. The sustainability of the livelihood expenditure brings great challenges. At present, in the context of high -cost enterprises and the central government's high cost of promoting "tax cuts and fees", how to ensure that the central government's sustainability of the transfer of people's livelihood transfer in the central and western regions has become a realistic issue. At the same time, the central government has adopted a large number of special transfer payment forms on people's livelihood transfer payments in the central and western regions. It is hoped that in this way, it is hoped that the local people's livelihood expenditure will be rigid to prevent the use of embezzlement and ensure the real social policy. However, this also puts forward many challenges to the organization of the people's livelihood project. The academic circles have carried out a large number of case research on the practical mechanism of the project system, and effectively revealed the efficiency loss and target deviation of the project organization implementation process, which fully reflects the project system Multiple paradox during the implementation process.

(2) Regular employment and informal employment

Informal employment is the concept of labor employment in international labor organizations to describe large -scale existence of developing countries and lack of regular social welfare protection. Huang Zongzhi's research shows that informal employment accounts for 75%of the proportion of urban employees in China.

Since the 21st century, an important effort in China ’s livelihood security is the coverage of expanding social security and gradually realizing the“ full coverage ”of social security. For example, after the reform of rural taxes and fees, we explored the establishment of a new type of rural cooperative medical system. Since then, we have introduced basic medical insurance for urban residents. In recent years, the two have been integrated as basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents. The basic pension insurance of urban and rural residents has also gone through a similar process. In 2020, the number of employees participating in the country was 345 million, and the number of basic medical insurance insurers participating in urban and rural residents was as high as 1.017 billion. It can be seen that the proportion of the population of employee medical insurance in 2020 accounted for only 24.6%of the total population, and the proportion of population of employee endowment insurance protection was only 32.6%. From the perspective of employees, the number of employees participating in employees accounted for the total number of employees nationwide. The proportion of 33%, and the proportion of employees' endowment insurance accounts for 44%. Obviously, informal employees do dominate. The difference between formal employment and informal employment is a typical manifestation of unbalanced development of people's livelihood protection among different groups. Although China has built the world's largest social security system and provides basic pension medical protection for informal employees, there are large differences in the guarantee level of regular employment and informal employees. For example, in 2020, the per capita pension per month per month per month for employees with employees, while urban and rural residents' endowment insurance per capita is only more than 170 yuan per month, and the difference between the two is nearly 20 times. Similarly, there are large differences in regular employment and informal employees in terms of medical insurance.

At the same time, the state provides social security for large -scale and informal employees, and also puts a lot of pressure on public finances. The biggest difference between employee pension medical insurance and residents' pension medical insurance is that the former is mainly based on employment units and individuals, and the state finance will be subsidized; Mainly fundraising. For example, in 2018, fiscal subsidized urban employee pension medical insurance totaling 906.2 billion yuan, accounting for 16.6%of the total revenue; while financial subsidies for urban and rural residents' basic pension medical insurance totaling 785.5 billion yuan, accounting for 71.9%of the total income. At present, the level of protection of basic medical care insurance for urban and rural residents is still low. It has gradually improved the level of guarantee and the gap between the treatment between employee insurance and has basically become a consensus. However, due to the large scale of the population of basic medical care insurance for urban and rural residents, the fund income is mainly from the national financial subsidy. Even the small improvement of the guarantee level will bring a lot of pressure on fiscal expenditure.

(3) Economic affairs and people's livelihood expenditures

At present, China is also facing the dual pressure of people's livelihood expenditures and economic affairs expenditures. The absolute main subject of public expenditure in Western industrialization is social expenditure represented by education, medical care and social security. For example, according to statistics from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), around 2015, social security is the absolute subject of public expenditure in developed countries. In Austria, France, Germany and other countries, social security accounts for more than 40%. In addition, medical care and education are two high public expenditures. In the vast majority of developed countries, three spending of social security, education and medical care accounted for more than 60%of the total expenditure, and some countries even reached or approached 70%. Although China's education, medical and health and social security expenditures have grown rapidly in the past two decades, the proportion of public expenditures is still lower than that of Western developed countries.

In addition, my country's economic affairs expenditure in public expenditure is significantly higher than that of developed countries. Since the 1980s, the proportion of economic affairs expenditures has been declining, but it is still an important part of public expenditure. According to statistics from IMF, before 2010, China's economic affairs spending accounted for more than 30%, and in 2015, it still reached 27.7%. The proportion of economic affairs expenditures in developed countries is far lower than that of public expenditure, most of the countries are about 10%, and typical welfare countries are less than 10%.

Obviously, China's economic affairs and people's livelihood expenditures have shown a "double strong" pattern, which is mainly related to the development model and development stage of the Chinese economy. Studies of economic historians believe that in the early stages of economic growth, public sector investment accounts for a higher proportion of capital investment, mainly providing infrastructure and public products such as transportation, roads, etc. The main direction will turn to social service expenditures such as education, medical care, and social security.

At present, China is in a critical period of moving from medium -to -income countries to high -income countries. It is expected that the end of the "14th Five -Year Plan" will meet the current high -income national standards. Obviously, economic affairs expenditure will continue to play an important role in China's economic growth to ensure that China smoothly span the "middle income trap" and enter the ranks of high -income countries. After entering the new stage of development, the central government will focus more on allocation issues and solidly promote common prosperity. The state will give greater investment in the protection of people's livelihood to further weave the social security network and give full play to the function of social policies.

With the transformation of China's socio -economic structure, the proportion of economic affairs expenditures in public expenditure should be further declined, and the status of people's livelihood expenditures will be more prominent. However, in a short period of time, the "double strong" pattern of economic affairs and people's livelihood expenditures will not undergo fundamental changes. China will continue to face the dual pressure of economic affairs and people's livelihood expenditures. In fact, it is also the dual pressure of economic development and people's livelihood protection. Essence Some grass -roots governments in the central and western regions are even facing the pressure of administrative operation. This is the financial logic of "maintaining operation, protecting people's livelihood, and growth". At present, the main contradictions of our society have transformed into the contradiction between the people's growing needs and imbalance and inadequate development. This is particularly obvious in the people's livelihood protection. On the one hand, due to the imbalance of economic and social development, there are certain differences between regions, urban and rural and crowds due to the imbalance of economic and social development. Although the proportion of people's livelihood expenditures in general, the proportion of GDP is about 20%. This is a low level of expenditure and also puts some pressure on the economic subject. However Still not very strong. On the other hand, in order to gradually reduce the level of people's livelihood protection level, the state not only establishes a large -scale fiscal transfer payment system between regions and urban and rural areas, but also establishes a large amount of basic social security for a large number of non -regular employees. Pressure. The real contradiction between the unbalanced level of people's livelihood and the system of the state that is trying to meet this gap is required, which requires certain interaction and balance. At the same time, how to deal with the imbalance and equalization of people's livelihood protection, the relationship between people's livelihood protection and economic development is also an important proposition of the new stage of development.

Conclusion and discussion

For more than two decades since the 21st century, China has gone through a "golden age" that is similar to the construction of people's livelihood protection similar to the western developed countries in the 1960s and 1980s. China has built the world's largest social security and housing security system, and the popularization of compulsory education has reached the world's average national average. The main health indicators of the population are generally better than the average of countries in the medium and high -income countries. Social Security Network of the cycle. China has obviously across the threshold of the "low welfare" country. Minsheng expenditure accounts for about 20%of GDP, close to the level of about 1980 in developed countries, which is also equivalent to the current average level of OECD countries. During the "Fourteenth Five -Year Plan" period, China's people's livelihood protection will reach a higher level, and the proportion of people's livelihood expenditures will exceed 20%of GDP, and the gap with developed countries will be further reduced.

Compared with Western welfare countries, China's people's livelihood protection construction has important differences in political concepts and power mechanisms. Some scholars believe that the growth of western welfare countries is essentially the result of the awakening of citizenship awareness. Social welfare is the social rights of citizens and a new "social contract" among the country and citizens. This view is an extension of the dual opposition between countries and society in the modern political philosophy of Western Western modern political philosophy. factor.

Obviously, this analysis framework with strong ideological colors is difficult to explain the leap development of Chinese people's livelihood protection since the 21st century. The relationship between Chinese countries and the people is difficult to include dominance -resistance models. It is more of a "family and country" form. In terms of fundamental interests and ethical norms, the country is basically the same: the family is the foundation of the country, the country is the expansion of the family, the country "establishes the country as the home", the people "turn their families into the country", and the country is a kind of "small small". The relationship between "home" and "everyone" is a ethical relationship that is different from contractuality. As a "everyone", the country has ethical social responsibility for many "small homes". This political concept is deeply rooted in Chinese historical traditions. Generally, the concept of governing the country with the people -centered development ideas proposed with the Party Central Committee has internal consistency. Under the guidance of this concept, with the long -term stable growth of the economy, the protection of Chinese people's livelihood has made a leap progress. It can be seen that the development of China's people's livelihood protection is the result of the country's active response to the changes in social structure and the needs of the public, and effectively fulfill the results of ethical responsibility and promote social construction.

At present, China is building a family -based people's livelihood China. Unlike Western welfare countries, families, not individuals are the basic society and governance units of people's livelihood China. Welfare countries not only theoretically preset social welfare is the basic rights of citizens, but also in practice, individuals who have independent rights and obligations as the basic governance objects. One of the components, at this time, "the country is an obvious and the only special line." On the contrary, China's people's livelihood protection system is not based on individualism in theory and practice. In practice, especially the importance of families as basic society and governance units. For example, the subsistence allowance assessment of urban and rural residents in my country, the identification and exit of the poor households in the rural files, the formulation and implementation of the pension policy, etc., are based on family as the basic unit. The basic social structure and governance unit with family and non -individuals, while using the organic blending of the country and society as the concept of governance, this is the deep theoretical logic of people's livelihood China.

However, the Chinese people's livelihood security system is also facing imbalance in development. The central financial transfer payment is already the main source of people's livelihood expenditure in the central and western regions and rural areas, and has played an important role in balanced people's livelihood and urban and rural gaps. At the same time, the state has also established a full -coverage basic medical pension insurance for large -scale "informal employment" personnel, which is also mainly responsible for expenditure by the central government. It can be seen that the central government's role in resolving the imbalance of people's livelihood protection and promoting the equalization of basic public services has become increasingly significant. China is building a new type of people's livelihood security system jointly responsible for multi -level government. At present, China is at a key node from medium -income countries to high -income countries, and the construction of people's livelihood protection is also in the critical period of "from good to excellent". How to continuously overcome the imbalance of people's livelihood protection and ensure that the protection of people's livelihood protection and the level of economic development is an important challenge facing the new stage of development. First of all, we should further optimize the livelihood expenditure system and continuously improve the efficiency of people's livelihood expenditure. The low efficiency of people's livelihood expenditure is the main influencing factors to improve the level of people's livelihood protection and enhance the sense of gain of the people. The key to solving this problem is to improve the efficiency of the central government's expenditure for local transfer payment. Secondly, the people's livelihood security should be established under the historical perspective of the dynamic evolution of urban and rural relations in China, and gives a certain institutional elasticity to the people's livelihood guarantee system. At present, China is at a historical node transformed from local China to urban and rural China. Urban and rural relations and social structure are in deep adjustments and changes. The people's livelihood security system for urban and rural areas must have a certain time -due to change. Finally, we must attach great importance to the basic role of families in the construction of people's livelihood protection. Clarifying and paying attention to the basic role of families in the protection of people's livelihood can not only reduce the state's public financial burden to a certain extent, but also further promote social fairness and justice, so as to ensure that the family is the starting point of the construction of Chinese people's livelihood protection and the final destination. These theories and practical propositions have the in -depth exploration of the academic and policy departments.

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