Tom:
>> Food, medical and housing can be (and in many cases are) provided by the State.
Housing is provided by the state and the rent is low, a decade ago it was only cost 5% of the salary. Now it costs somewheret around 10%. However, if you are unemployed, a lot subsidies will go, such as transportation, housing (for a lot of people who have job, their rent is still around 5% of the pay because of the housing subsidies), food, etc, you name it. Believe it or not, people who have jobs, they don't need to pay for the monthly bus pass themselves, the working unit will subsidize. Depending on the profitibility of your working unit, employees of some big high-profit state firms lives like in an "utopia". I mean they have all kinds of subsidies that most of their salary are disposable income. But keep in mind, there are not too many this kind of high-profit firms, and most of them located in coastal cities and southern part of China, like Shanghai, Nanjing. Medical is also provided in cities, although starting from 2-3 years ago, individual has to pay 10%.
But food are not provided by the government. For most of people, food cost count for 50%, if not more, of their pay. Some profitable working units give some free food to their employees all year round, like meat, fruit and even rice. Although by my standard, I think many Chinese lived in cities should eat a little bit less, or exercise more because a lot of them put on too much weight. So if you are unemployed, it will be a big problem.
Now about unemployment: some of the people are really unemployed without any allowrance for basic necessities (food, rent, and medical). Those people will post a big threat to a stable society. Because they just cannot survive. A lot of former state-owned factories, firms, they are closed down, but their employees are still have 60% of their basic pay (excluding all kinds of subsidies), I call them allowrance. Since the inflation rate on food is quite high, so it may not be enough. Of course, these people can, and often have to, freelance just about any job. This group of people are not happy for sure, but not a big threat to stable society either unless they are organized. I would say most of unemployed people in cities belong to the later group.
In short, the gap bet. rich and poor is sky high, because Chinese gov. has a very lousy tax system. The second-time distribution of income is simply nonexistent. A small number of people can become an instant millinaire in a very short time. But for the majority of ordinary Chinese people, especially those who are older (50+), life is hard now. A lot of benefits of the old socialist system have gone or will be gone, and the new social safe net has not been established yet. Plenty of problems.
But considering the huge population and limited natural resources in China, just to feed these 1.3 billion (almost) people is a chanllege for any government or social system on this planet, not to mention to improve their living standard. Compared with the US, the US has 23% of the total arable land on earth but only 5% of the world population; while China has 7% of the world arable land but 23% of the population. A lot of Western countries have never put themselves in the position of China. I guess I am a little bit off the topic.
Good luck.
|
