"At present, 70 million people across China enjoy the basic living allowance. The urban and rural basic living allowance system is the most fundamental guarantee for people in financial difficulty. The implementation of this safeguard has essentially formed a "safety net" guaranteeing a minimum standard of living for people in financial difficulty. The livelihood of people in financial difficulty has been guaranteed, and the problem of insufficient food and clothing 1.3 billion Chinese people face has been generally resolved,” said Li Xueju, Minister of Civil Affairs, with deep emotion when talking about New China's civil affairs.
The civil affairs sector has developed along with the growth of China, and its development path is pride-worthy and inspiring. Meanwhile, Li is aware that the he shoulders a heavy burden.
Li Xueju, Minister of Civil AffairsHunger breeds discontent; exploring how to resolve the lack of food and clothing is difficult "I have personally experienced difficulties over the past 60 years since the founding of New China. I grew up in the countryside and worked at grassroots-level posts for 10 years. I had the most contact with ordinary people when I worked at a rural commune, and often ate, lived and did manual work together with them." When recalling the past, Li talked tirelessly.
What methods were adopted to protect rural residents in financial difficulty at that time? Li said that rural residents lived with collective production and distribution and their standard of living simply depended on the operation of the collective. Due to irrationality in policy direction, although grassroots-level cadres worked hard, they still failed to motivate rural residents.
In addition, as rural residents had no other source of income, members of many production teams could only earn several fen (100 fen = one yuan) a day and their food came solely from the distribution from production teams, with the annual minimum standard being 180 kilograms of raw grain per person.
At the time, the lives of the mass were universally very hard and impoverished. To resolve the problems people in financial difficulty were facing, production teams could allocate some funds from the collective and the government could allocate some assistance funds, but such subsidies were very limited and were just several yuan per recipient. This form of assistance was temporary and a fundamental system had yet to take shape. Furthermore, the government's financial resources were so limited that the food and clothing problem facing a large number of people had not been solved.
Although the slogan "Boosting grain yields per mu to extremely high levels" was put forward across the country, such targets were never realized. The public faced great difficulties in terms of food, housing and clothing. No problem is more important than the food and clothing problem over one billion people were facing, but it was not easy to solve. Although many methods were formulated, the problem had not been solved before reform and opening-up was taken in late 1970s. Mass poverty was seen across most of the countryside. The government was aware of the difficulties of the masses, but had no money to solve them.
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