Seminario temático: resolver los puntos problemáticos del sistema y mejorar la pensión de los agricultores

文/Zero Yi Think Tank

【Editor’s Note】

The 2026 National People’s Congress sessions have concluded successfully. During the sessions, more than 20 National People’s Congress deputies focused on the difficult issue of farmers’ elderly care, and put forward related suggestions on improving farmers’ pensions and完善 the rural elderly care security system. Among them are specific proposals such as “within three years, gradually increase the basic pension for farmers aged 70 and above to 500 yuan per month,” which has drawn widespread attention and heated discussion across society.

The suggestions made by National People’s Congress deputies regarding farmers’ pensions, in essence, reflect a concrete commitment to the original intention of prioritizing people’s wellbeing, addressing shortcomings in people’s wellbeing, and promoting social fairness. Its significance runs through three aspects: historical compensation, real-world protection, and development orientation, combining both warmth and depth.

Zero Yi Finance invited National People’s Congress deputies, professors from Peking University, and professors from China Agricultural University to hold a special discussion, exploring the necessity of improving farmers’ pensions in China at present, and also conducting an in-depth discussion on how to improve farmers’ pensions, with the aim of better advancing adjustments to farmers’ pension benefits in China, so that farmers can also benefit from being brought into cities.

【About the Author】

Fang Yan, National People’s Congress deputy, supervisor at the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, deputy head (part-time) of the Rights and Interests Department of the All-China Women’s Federation, senior partner at Beijing Jincheng Tongda Law Offices and director of its Xi’an branch.

Gu Lei, deputy director of the Research Base for Inclusive Finance and Legal Regulation at Peking University, and chief economist of the China Local Finance Research Association.

Zhang Dong, associate professor at the School of Humanities and Development, China Agricultural University, and secretary-general of the 50-member forum on pension finance at Tsinghua University’s Wudao Financial College.

Zero Yi Finance: During this year’s NPC sessions, the issue of raising farmers’ pensions once again became a focal point of public livelihood. Several National People’s Congress deputies called for improving farmers’ pension待遇. For example, deputy Guo Fenglian believes that “200 yuan per month in pension is a bit too much of a loss for farmers,” deputy Lei Maiduan suggested “raising the basic pension for farmers aged 70 and above from over 100 yuan to 500 yuan,” and deputy Ren Min also proposed “exempting farmers aged 80 and above from paying medical insurance,” ensuring that elderly farmers can spend their later years in security.

For a long time, China’s farmers’ pension待遇 has been too low. It not only affects the quality of life of retired elderly farmers, but also seriously restricts the release of consumption potential in rural areas. How can we effectively ensure that the farmers’ social security system is further optimized, advance common prosperity, and narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas has become a real and urgent issue at this stage. In your view, what are the main pain points in China’s farmers’ pensions?

Gu Lei: At present, the core pain points in China’s farmers’ pensions are concentrated in five areas: low benefit levels, large regional disparities, weak enrollment incentives, a single protection structure, and insufficient services and supporting provisions. These have become the most prominent real-world contradictions in rural elderly care.

1. The current standards for farmers’ pensions are relatively low, leading to a large disparity between urban and rural pensions, which does not align with the national goal of narrowing the urban-rural gap.

At present, the lowest standard for farmers’ pensions nationwide will be increased to 163 yuan per month in 2026. This is only 1/12 of urban employees’ pensions (about 3500 yuan per month), and also lower than 50% of the rural minimum living guarantee standard (about 594 yuan per month). For most farmers, their pension is only enough to buy staple grains and cooking oil, basic clothing, and some medicines, making it difficult to cover rigid expenditures such as medical care, utilities like water and electricity and gas, and elderly care services. Therefore, it cannot support all the needs of rural elderly people’s end-of-life living.

2. The gap in urban-rural pension regional differences is stark. Especially in eastern and western regions, farmers’ pensions differ greatly, which is not conducive to the healthy development of the national pension system as a whole.

For example, farmers’ pensions in Shanghai are about 1555 yuan per month, while in Gansu they are only about 249 yuan per month—a difference of more than 6 times. This shows a tendency toward an “east-west divide.” This indicates that the contradiction of unbalanced regional development in China is prominent, and the rural elderly care security system urgently needs to upgrade from “localization and fragmentation” to “national pooling and fair and inclusive coverage,” in order to meet the requirements for common prosperity in the new era of socialism.

3. The incentive mechanism has failed. The portion of the basic pension is characterized by “indistinguishable” payments (for residents in the same area who meet the eligibility conditions, the basic pension standard is the same), which is weakly linked to individuals’ contribution tiers and years of contributions. The incentive effect of “more contributions leading to more benefits” and “longer contributions leading to more benefits” is limited. Farmers generally believe that “it’s the same whether you contribute a lot or a little,” and there is a lack of motivation for long-term contributions. Although in recent years some regions have optimized incentive mechanisms (such as increasing subsidies for higher-tier contributions and adding increases for longer contribution years to the basic pension), overall, the strength of incentives is still insufficient and has not fundamentally changed farmers’ understanding and behavior regarding contributions.

4. The adjustment mechanism is not健全. The basic pension lacks a normalized, institutionalized adjustment mechanism. In the past 13 years, it has only been increased four times, with limited growth and an unstable pace. Reimbursement or catch-up policies are also often restricted. Most regions do not allow people to upgrade and make up additional payments for already-contributed years. Farmers who want to increase their personal account accumulation have “no way to upgrade.” In addition, second- and third-pillar schemes such as rural commercial pension insurance, pension savings, and long-term care insurance are nearly blank, leading to an overreliance on a single basic pension as a safety net.

5. The current pension conversion method is not equivalent to farmers’ historical contributions and needs reasonable adjustment and re-evaluation. For a long time, farmers have accumulated original capital for the country’s economic construction through the price scissors difference between industrial and agricultural products,保障 of food security, support from land factors, and the supply of low-cost labor.

From the perspective of historical contributions, farmers have made foundational and long-term contributions during China’s process of industrialization and urbanization. However, compared with urban employee pension insurance, the rural elderly care security system started later and lacks conversion mechanisms for historical contributions such as deemed contribution years. As a result, a benefit verification method that sufficiently reflects historical contributions has never been formed.

This mismatch between historical contributions and pension benefits creates a clear historical shortfall and a weakness in fairness, which has become one major pain point of low farmers’ pension levels and insufficient protection capacity at present.

Zero Yi Finance: For a long time, there have been different views on whether to improve farmers’ pensions. Some people believe that farmers historically have not paid into pensions, so there is no issue of raising pensions now. Others scholars have proposed that farmers have their own宅基地 and land; elderly care is not a problem, so there is no need to raise farmers’ pensions again. Deputy Fang Yan, you have visited many rural areas. Do you think these views are reasonable?

Fang Yan: Improving farmers’ pensions has always had different voices. There are mainly two kinds of views among those who oppose:

The first view holds that urban residents’ pensions are accumulated from their own contributions over time. After retirement, of course, they can withdraw the full amount of pension to enjoy their later years. Farmers, however, have never paid pension insurance fees, so naturally there is no problem of withdrawing a generous pension after retirement.

In fact, before 2006, farmers were required to pay agricultural tax, known as the so-called “public grain.” At that time, almost every township had grain depots. When it came to the season of harvest in autumn, farmers would pull grain-laden carts to deliver the public grain to support urban residents.

That is to say, the state uniformly allocated and supplied the collected “public grain” to the urban population and supported industrialization. Fundamentally, this means that farmers injected economic resources that could be distributed and reinvested into the state in the form of physical goods. The public grain can be converted into monetary amounts based on the national purchase prices and market prices at the time. It is a measurable fiscal contribution and can fully be regarded as farmers’ “implicit asset accumulation,” with a theoretical basis that it can be converted, acknowledged, and compensated. It’s just that at that time, the agricultural tax was expressed in the form of physical goods such as grain, rather than as an unpaid donation.

Therefore, I believe that the “public grain” paid by farmers before 2006 is, in essence, farmers’ long-term economic contributions and implicit accumulation for the state. It falls under long-term accumulation provided for the country’s industrialization and urbanization, and in economic terms, it can fully be converted into monetary value and counted within the category of cash assets.

The second view argues that the state has already given farmers宅基地 and land, which amounts to “free housing + subsistence security,” so they should naturally not enjoy pensions as an additional benefit. Meanwhile, urban residents did not receive protection for宅基地 and land, so the costs they paid earlier to buy houses should be compensated by pension benefits later.

This view seems reasonable, but in reality it is completely untenable. It confuses two entirely different concepts of “security.” I believe that宅基地 is collectively owned; what farmers have is residential security, not an asset, and certainly not a cash flow. Farmers only have the right to use it. They cannot freely buy or sell it, cannot mortgage it, cannot list it for transaction, and cannot even tear down the house to sell it for money to buy rice and medicine.

Most importantly, pensions are “security for people,” not “welfare for houses.” The essence of a pension is cash income that provides life security in workers’ old age, and it has nothing to do with whether they have a house. Elderly farmers need cash for meals, medicine, medical treatment, and buying daily necessities. They cannot rely on bricks and cement.

So, we cannot use a non-liquid “residential qualification” to offset the cash reserves that elderly farmers need for their later life, and we cannot use a “宅基地” that cannot be eaten to offset farmers’ most basic cash pension needs. That would be unfair.

Zero Yi Finance: Some scholars are concerned that raising farmers’ pensions at the current stage is uncertain. They believe that China’s current economic strength has not reached a stage where farmers’ pensions can be increased significantly. Based on relevant calculations from the Seventh National Population Census and analyses of the development trend of rural population aging in recent years, China currently has about 121 million elderly farmers aged 60 and above. This group accounts for 23.81% of the total rural population, which is 7.99 percentage points higher than in cities. The size of the elderly farmer base is too large, and the state cannot bear it economically. Professor Zhang, as an expert who has long worked in the pension insurance field, what is your view on this issue?

Zhang Dong: The essence of this issue is whether, at the current stage, increasing farmers’ pensions has economic security and whether there is enough social wealth to support it. I believe that based on China’s overall economic strength today, increasing farmers’ pensions at this stage still has economic capacity, and the overall social wealth system is sufficient to support high-level pension payments.

First, it is an objective fact that the benefit level of farmers’ pensions is low. There is a solid and necessary basis for continuously raising it, but we need to clarify the “moderate” standard. This core depends on the positioning of the basic pension insurance system for urban and rural residents. The core positioning of China’s basic pension insurance for urban and rural residents is to “secure basic needs.” This is both the original intention of the system and an important foundation for ensuring basic living for elderly farmers and achieving common prosperity. Under the guidance of the national strategy for common prosperity, enabling elderly farmers to share in the fruits of economic and social development is the proper meaning of system design and an inevitable requirement for social fairness. At the same time, we must make clear that “raising” does not mean “a large-scale across-the-board increase,” but rather a moderate improvement based on the “secure basic needs” principle.

Using the minimum living allowance standard as a reference for calculating the moderate level has strong rationality. This is because the subsistence guarantee standard itself is the bottom line for ensuring basic living of residents and aligns with the system’s positioning. In the long run, different regions can reasonably determine the upper and lower limits of “secure basic needs” based on local economic development level, fiscal capacity, and policy goals—so that the security bottom line is not lowered, and improvements do not go beyond the development stage. This helps farmers form stable expectations. This is also the core logic behind the continuing upward adjustment of basic pensions for urban and rural residents in 2026 and the commitment to “normalized and micro-adjusted” changes.

Second, after clarifying the moderate standard for the basic pension, we can quickly and simply assess whether the state can bear the cost by using the rural minimum living allowance standard as the base. This makes it clear that fiscal pressure is fully controllable. Ensuring basic old-age living for elderly farmers is a responsibility explicitly assigned to the state. If we take the rural minimum living allowance standard as the benchmark, it can intuitively reflect the incremental fiscal pressure. At the end of 2024, the national rural minimum living allowance average monthly standard was 594 yuan. In 2026, the average monthly basic pension for elderly farmers is 163 yuan. The difference is 431 yuan. Based on 121 million elderly farmers, the annual新增 fiscal subsidy would be about 625.8 billion yuan.

This amount accounts for 2.18% of the 28.74 trillion yuan of China’s national general public budget in 2025, and the ratio to GDP is about 0.45%. It will not add excessive fiscal pressure. Combined with the reality of implementing the basic pension adjustment in 2026, it proves that the state has the fiscal capacity to hold the bottom line of rural pension security, and the pressure for a moderate increase is completely controllable.

Third, after defining the moderate standard for the basic pension, establishing a scientific normal adjustment mechanism is crucial to avoid “one-time increases” and “blind increases,” and to achieve sustainable growth in benefits. Based on national policy orientations and local pilot experience, the normal adjustment mechanism should take into account two core factors:

One is the inflation rate—this is the basis to ensure that pension purchasing power does not erode, and to make sure elderly farmers’ basic living standards do not decline due to price increases.

The other is the wage growth rate or the growth rate of per-capita disposable income of urban and rural residents—this is the core for elderly farmers to share in the fruits of economic development. Typically, about 50% of its growth rate can be chosen. Combined with inflation, it forms the core logic for benefit adjustments.

This adjustment approach is not something imagined out of thin air. Multiple provinces have already been exploring it in pilot programs. It both takes into account fiscal capacity and achieves synchronized growth in benefits with economic and social development, which highly aligns with the requirement to establish a normal adjustment mechanism for basic pensions for urban and rural residents.

In summary, a moderate increase in farmers’ pensions is both necessary and something the state’s fiscal resources can bear. We cannot deny the necessity of the increase simply because the elderly farmers’ base is large, and we also cannot blindly pursue “large-scale increases” outside the development stage. The key is to grasp three core points:

First, adhere to the system positioning of “secure basic needs,” and clarify the standard for moderate adjustment;

Second, establish a normal adjustment mechanism that balances purchasing power and shared development achievements, to achieve sustainable growth in benefits;

Third, reasonably divide fiscal responsibility between the central and local governments, adopting a “central safety net + local co-sharing” model. The central government’s fiscal support should focus on weaker regions in the central and western parts of the country. Local governments should supplement subsidies in line with their own capacity. At the same time, by replenishing the fund through multiple channels such as transferring state-owned capital收益, the protection capacity can be further strengthened. This will enable 121 million elderly farmers to truly achieve “support in old age, security in old age,” and substantially enhance their sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security.

Zero Yi Finance: As a National People’s Congress deputy, in your view, what impacts would implementing the proposals related to farmers’ pensions have on our country’s people’s wellbeing security, social stability, economic development, and social civilization? Can it truly help form a virtuous cycle of “improving people’s wellbeing, achieving social harmony, and enhancing economic quality”?

Fang Yan: I believe that providing farmers’ pensions has positive significance for China’s rural elderly population, for stimulating consumption across the whole society, for resolving elderly care conflicts, and for consolidating the foundation of governance.

First, for rural groups, it helps solve the predicament of elderly care and improve quality of life and dignity.

For rural elderly people, improving the pension level will directly enhance their quality of life in later years. A stable monthly income can cover basic living expenses such as staple food, cooking oil, salt and seasonings, water and electricity, and relieve the dilemma of “difficult to get medical care” and “difficult to care for the elderly,” reducing dependence on their children and improving their autonomy and dignity in daily life. For rural families, easing the burden of elderly care can effectively relieve family financial pressure, reduce family conflicts arising from elderly care, and promote harmony within rural families.

At the same time, among the proposed measures are “deemed contributions” and “tilts for elderly age.” These will focus on elderly groups who previously paid public grain or worked obligatory labor, ensuring that those farmers who made contributions to national development receive tangible compensation, further enhancing their sense of gain and belonging in rural communities.

Second, at the societal level, it is beneficial for resolving elderly care conflicts and promoting social harmony and stability.

If rural elderly care problems remain unresolved for a long time, not only will it affect the quality of life of rural groups, but it may also trigger a range of social contradictions and constrain social harmony and stability. Implementing the proposals related to farmers’ pensions can effectively resolve prominent contradictions in the rural elderly care field, reduce disputes arising from insufficient elderly care security, and ease pressure on social governance.

Meanwhile, this measure can convey the concept of social fairness and justice, so that the whole society can see the state’s attention and protection for rural groups and vulnerable groups, strengthening social cohesion and centripetal force. It can also help foster a good social atmosphere of “respecting the elderly and caring for them, and practicing mutual assistance,” laying a solid foundation for social harmony and stability.

Third, from an economic perspective, it is beneficial for boosting rural consumption and supporting the expansion of domestic demand and economic circulation.

Rural populations are an important part of China’s consumer market, but the consumption potential of rural elders has been suppressed for a long time due to insufficient pension security. Increasing farmers’ pension levels will directly raise rural elderly people’s disposable income, stimulate their consumption demand, and drive the development of related industries such as rural daily necessities, healthcare, and elderly care services—thereby expanding rural consumption markets.

At the same time, increased demand for elderly care will promote the improvement of rural elderly care service systems, giving rise to the development of related industries such as elderly care nursing and the construction of elderly care facilities. It will create new jobs, increase employment of rural labor forces, support rural economic development, and help form a virtuous economic cycle of “improved elderly care security—consumption growth—industry development—more employment.” This injects new momentum into China’s high-quality economic development.

Finally, at the level of the country, it helps consolidate the foundation of governance and gather development forces.

Farmers are an important part of China’s population, and farmers’ happiness and wellbeing are an important foundation for national development. When National People’s Congress deputies propose proposals related to farmers’ pensions and help push them into implementation, it reflects the Party and the state’s deep care for farmers. It can further strengthen the connections between the Party and the government and the farmers, and consolidate the Party’s foundation for governance.

At the same time, this measure can gather the whole society’s joint efforts to focus on rural areas, support rural areas, and develop rural areas. It will promote the gradual realization of goals such as coordinated urban-rural development and common prosperity, so that all people can share the fruits of development in the process of national development. It provides solid people’s livelihood security and a mass foundation for China’s comprehensive construction of a socialist modern country.

Zero Yi Finance: Improving farmers’ pensions is a major people’s livelihood project that combines social fairness, fiscal feasibility, and the necessity for life. It is not only a solemn return for farmers’ historical contributions, but also helps open up a huge rural consumption market, further narrows the urban-rural income gap, and embodies the core elements of mutual assistance and sharing in the new era of socialism—laying a solid foundation for achieving the common prosperity goals during the “15th Five-Year Plan” period. What specific countermeasures and suggestions do you have for improving farmers’ pensions?

Gu Lei: First, draft and formulate the《Urban and Rural Residents’ Pension Insurance Regulations》 as soon as possible, clarifying that a certain proportion of funds should be extracted from the net proceeds of land transfer each year and injected into a “National Farmers’ Pension Security Special Fund,” to be used specifically for this purpose. This would fill gaps in fiscal capacity in rural areas and enhance system rigidity and legal protection.

Second, improve the benefit adjustment mechanism and strengthen institutional sustainability. Establish normalized and institutionalized adjustment mechanisms: link the adjustment of the basic pension to GDP growth, the growth rate of per-capita disposable income of rural residents, the rate of price increases, and the adjustment range of pensions for urban employees. Clarify the adjustment cycle (once every year or every two years) and the adjustment magnitude, form predictable and operable adjustment rules, stabilize rural elderly people’s expectations for security, and realize small steps and fast running with adjustments every year—changing the past situation of “slow adjustments and low increases,” strengthening farmers’ expectations for elderly care, and increasing elderly farmers’ sense of happiness and security.

Specifically, three major goals need to be established:

First, establish the baseline standard for increasing farmers’ pensions, and clearly plan that the farmers’ pension standard should not be lower than 1000 yuan per month by 2030 as the main reference goal. Implement in stages: based on the current farmers’ basic pension, add 200 yuan each year for four consecutive years, so that by 2030 the accumulation can reach a pension standard of no less than 1000 yuan per month.

Second, establish an “agricultural age subsidy.” For farmers engaged in agricultural labor for more than 30 years, add a “historical contribution service-year subsidy,” which is credited into the monthly pension at 10-15 yuan per year. Third, establish a tilt for advanced age: for elderly farmers aged over 80, on the basis of the basic pension, uniformly increase the待遇 by no less than 30%.

Third, improve the fiscal sharing mechanism and increase support for the central and western regions. It is recommended to adjust the central-local fiscal sharing proportions. For less-developed areas in the central and western regions, revolutionary old base areas, and rural impoverished areas, increase the share of central fiscal subsidies and reduce the配套 pressure on local finances. Establish a special fund for regional balanced development of rural pensions, focusing on raising standards in low-standard areas and gradually narrowing the待遇 gap between the east, center, and west. The purpose is to promote equalization of basic public services, incorporate farmers’ pension standards into local government performance evaluations, and force local governments to pay more attention to rural elderly care security. Encourage developed eastern regions and less-developed central and western regions to establish assistance mechanisms. Through sharing funds, technology, and experience, promote coordinated development of rural pension systems and break the regional segmentation of benefits.

Fourth, establish a coordinated mechanism between elderly care and medical security to further improve rural residents’ health insurance reimbursement policies. Increase reimbursement proportions for chronic diseases and common illnesses, reduce out-of-pocket expenses, and reduce the phenomenon of pensions being squeezed by medical spending. In reality, “pensions being squeezed by medical spending” and “dual pressure from elderly care + medical care” are common phenomena among rural elderly groups. Therefore, what we explore today to build a linkage mechanism between pension benefits and medical insurance subsidies is to provide additional subsidies to elderly rural residents with high age and serious illnesses, relieve the dual pressure of “elderly care + medical care,” and address the problem of farmers “spending all their pensions on medicine,” which are all of practical significance.

Finally, strengthen the synergistic effects of policy implementation and broaden fundraising channels. For example, link the pace of raising farmers’ pension standards with rural revitalization. Make narrowing regional gaps in pensions for urban and rural residents one of the core indicators for evaluating local governments’ progress toward common prosperity. The core is to transform pension standard increases—from a single people’s livelihood security measure—into a comprehensive policy tool that drives rural industry, governance, and consumption. This realizes a virtuous cycle of “security for people’s wellbeing—activating rural areas—replenishing security.” It also accelerates the construction of a multi-tier, sustainable, and fairer rural elderly care security system.

Of course, raising farmers’ pensions is not simply increasing the monthly basic pension amount. It is not a once-and-for-all matter. It requires comprehensively improving the structure of the security system and building a multi-tier elderly support framework, such as promoting the development of the second and third pillars. Increase policy support for rural commercial pension insurance, encourage insurance companies to launch low-cost and simplified pension products suitable for rural residents, and reduce barriers to enrollment. Promote rural pension savings and pension wealth management products, and guide farmers to actively accumulate funds for retirement, forming a multi-tier system where “the first pillar provides a safety net, and the second and third pillars provide supplementation.”

In addition, increasing investment in rural elderly care service facilities is also very important. Building day-care centers and rural welfare institutes is crucial. Socially配备 professional nursing staff is needed to provide care services for rural elderly people living alone, empty-nest seniors, and elderly people with disabilities. Recently, eight departments including the National Healthcare Security Administration, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the National Health Commission, the State Taxation Administration, and the China Disabled Persons’ Federation jointly issued the《关于加快建立长期护理保险制度的意见》, aiming to cover long-term care insurance in rural areas, focusing on elderly rural residents who are disabled and those who are semi-disabled, to reduce family caregiving pressure, encourage social forces to participate in rural long-term care services, and improve the professionalism of care services.

In short, I believe that to address the pain points in the farmers’ pension system, we must adhere to the principles of “securing basic needs, promoting fairness, strengthening incentives, and ensuring sustainability.” We should coordinate fiscal investment, system design, and service provision. Link pension benefits with elderly care services, and provide appropriate subsidies to elderly people choosing institutional elderly care or home-based care. This will achieve dual coverage of “fund security + service security.”

We must both solve the current real problems of “difficult elderly care and low待遇” for rural elderly people, and also look ahead to the future—construct a multi-tier, sustainable rural elderly care security system so that rural elderly groups can share in the fruits of economic and social development, realizing “support in old age, medical care in old age, and security in old age.”

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