Recently, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the "Special Action Plan to Boost Consumption" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"). The "Plan" deploys 30 key tasks in 8 aspects, closely combines goal-oriented and problem-oriented approaches, and proposes specific and precise consumption boosting measures from the aspects of increasing residents' income and reducing burdens, expanding high-quality supply, and optimizing the consumption environment, and is committed to solving the prominent contradictions and problems that restrict residents' consumption.
The beginning of the "Plan" clearly states that "improving consumption capacity by increasing income and reducing burdens" is the most concerned by all sectors of society. This measure is essentially a set of "combination punches" that work together, which not only controls the present but also the long-term, but also fundamentally continues to stimulate consumption vitality with practical people's livelihood and promote consumption to a new stage of development. It is not necessary to deny that residents' consumption capacity is directly related to residents' disposable income and the level of social security enjoyed: on the one hand, "income increase" can "add" the funds that residents can use for consumption; on the other hand, "reducing burden" can reduce the necessary expenditure pressures for residents in key areas of life. This "one plus and one subtraction" will help consolidate residents' consumption capacity and willingness.
In March 2025, job seekers learned about job information at the Guangdong-Guangdong Labor Cooperation Spring Breeze Action Recruitment Activity
Look at "addition" first. Chinese people are accustomed to "living within their means", and their consumption capacity depends directly on their income level, and income is the cornerstone and prerequisite of consumption. The "Plan" puts the "Action to Promote Urban and Rural Residents' Income Increase" at the top, and lays out four key aspects: "promoting the reasonable growth of wage income, broadening the channels of property income, taking multiple measures to promote farmers' income growth, and solidly solving the problem of arrears of accounts." Among them, wage income and property income are the main sources of income for the vast majority of residents.
In terms of promoting the reasonable growth of wage income, the "Plan" first focuses on comprehensive measures such as employment and minimum wage standards to promote the stable growth of mass and labor income that is most involved and urgently needs to be guaranteed. In view of the fact that property income can better stimulate residents' willingness to consume and effectively drive residents' consumption growth, the "Plan" proposes a series of powerful measures to expand property income, such as taking multiple measures to stabilize the stock market, strengthening the construction of strategic reserves of forces and market stabilization mechanisms, and accelerating the opening of channels for medium- and long-term funds such as commercial insurance funds, national social security funds, basic pension insurance funds, enterprise (vocational) annuity funds, etc. to enter the stock market. These are all refined solutions to existing problems.
A universal childcare institution in Hangzhou, childcare teachers are coaxing babies to sleep one by one
Look at "subtraction" again. People's livelihood issues such as childbirth, nurturing, education, medical care, and elderly care have profoundly affected people's living standards and quality of life, and are also important factors that affect the release of consumption potential. These major events in people's livelihood are crucial to every individual and every family. If the current expenditure burden is high and there is still uncertainty in expenditure in the future, residents will tend to increase preventive savings, thereby reducing the disposable income used for consumption in the current period.
In response to these livelihood matters involving thousands of households, the "Plan" introduces a series of specific burden reduction measures, including issuing childcare subsidies, increasing the basic pension for urban and rural residents and the financial subsidy standards for basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents. As these policies take root, accurately implemented and deepened, they will help systematically reduce people's worries and then play a positive role in boosting consumption. It can be said that burden reduction measures are equivalent to increasing residents' disposable income and enhancing residents' sense of happiness and gain.
The key to special actions to boost consumption lies in practical actions. The "Special Action Plan to Boost Consumption" highlights the four words "special action", which is a specific implementation of this year's government work "vigorously boost consumption, improve investment efficiency, and expand domestic demand in all aspects." Next, it depends on active response from the central government to the local government and systematic efforts based on their respective actual situations. How to promote the virtuous cycle of macroeconomic development and individual people's livelihood improvement, and how to make a better life more realistic and within reach, requires our joint efforts. (Wen Feng, special commentator of China Radio International)
