Why is there a greater need for a resident income growth plan now?

About ten years ago, when I was visiting abroad to study, I chatted with elementary and middle school classmates who had settled overseas earlier. I found that, though she was based in Silicon Valley, she had a strong sense of forewarning. Whenever she mentioned the need to prepare for a time when the economy was not doing well, I realized with a jolt that the mindset of friends I had grown up with since our youth was vastly different from mine. After having gone through the 2008 financial crisis, she was no longer as naive as I used to be. She seemed to believe that tomorrow would always be better.

Soon, over the past two years, China’s economy stepped down from its phase of rapid growth. As an individual in a big era, you can feel the cold and warmth for yourself. When this “Fifteen Five” plan and the government work report proposed the “Resident Income Growth Plan,” at first it was overlooked by the outside world, and people thought it was old news. More or less, there were lingering effects from the pandemic, and people’s drive and mindset were very different from several years earlier. Before that, wages across almost every industry had been rising year by year; but now, there are already not many people who believe this is an inevitable trend. Looking ahead now, it’s easy for worry to outweigh joy—even the wry remark that perhaps each year now might be the best year of the next decade has gained popularity. This is one of the big backdrops for the heated discussion sparked by this issue of Caixin’s cover story (see this issue’s latest cover story in Caixin Weekly, “How to Increase Income”)

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