Which organ should I find for the old collective workers' pension insurance in their seventies and eighties?

In all kinds of historical materials, there have also been stories that newspapers with the Labor Protection Regulations have been snapped up, employees of enterprises have organized waist drum teams to report good news, and workers have turned over their pension savings to the government to support the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.

Now few people know that the birthplace of the new China pension system is in the northeast. Fifty years later, it was on this land that1968+when the state-owned enterprises reformed in the late 1990s, the problem of providing for the aged triggered various social contradictions.

During the War of Liberation, Northeast China was the first region to be included in the territory of China's * * * production party. From 65438 to 0948, on the basis of experiments in Harbin and other places, according to the Provisional Regulations on Labor Insurance of State-owned Enterprises in Northeast China (hereinafter referred to as the Northeast Regulations) promulgated by the Sixth National Labor Conference, the labor insurance system was gradually implemented in seven major industries, including railways, posts and telecommunications, mines, military industry and textiles.

The word "labor insurance" was coined by Li, then secretary of the Workers' Movement Committee of the Northeast Bureau, and was later inherited in China, instead of the worldwide "social insurance". Li, who led the workers' movement, was also the main founder of the new China labor insurance system.

Xia Boguang, a reporter from China Social Security News, confirmed to Southern Weekend that the Northeast Regulations refer to the social insurance model of the Soviet Union, and Li's Soviet wife also helped translate a lot of materials.

According to the Northeast Regulations, all public enterprises have to pay 3% of the total wages on a monthly basis, of which 30% is deposited in the bank designated by the government as the general labor insurance fund, and the rest is kept in the enterprise for labor insurance expenses. In addition, the pension payment is "30%-60% of my salary according to the length of service".

An interesting episode is that when the Northeast Regulations were formulated, there was a debate about whether workers needed to pay fees. The earliest Northeast Bill actually required workers to "pay five thousandths of their wages". A document obtained by Xia Boguang records the report of the Northeast Bureau to the Central Committee, in which it is mentioned that "many comrades, especially those in lower-level enterprises, think it is best not to pay wages to workers", on the grounds that it is more politically significant for the insurance premium to be borne entirely by the state, and at the same time, they are worried that it is "too much" for workers to pay both public expenses and labor insurance fees. Later, this request was supported by the central government and the payment terms were cancelled.

At that time, in an editorial in the Northeast Daily, the "workers don't pay wages" like the Soviet Union was hailed as the superiority of a socialist country. The article also criticizes capitalist countries that "social insurance is handled by the government or specialized bureaucracies, which often take out huge sums of money from insurance money to support them, and even use it to embezzle and enrich themselves, so that a large number of workers' blood and sweat flow into the pockets of these bureaucracies."

1949 On the eve of the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), a political consultative conference was held and a * * * program was issued, in which "gradually implementing the labor insurance system" was written.

After the founding of New China, Li, then Minister of the Central Labor Department, led the drafting of the Labor Insurance Regulations, which was promulgated by the State Council (predecessor of the State Council) at the beginning of195/kloc-0. It was the only social security regulation in China 60 years before the promulgation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) Social Insurance Law in 20 10.

According to the regulations, old-age care is included in the labor insurance fund system for overall consideration-enterprises withdraw the labor insurance fund on a monthly basis according to 3% of the total wages, of which 70% is retained by the grass-roots trade unions of enterprises to pay for various security expenses such as old-age care and medical care for employees, and 30% is turned over to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions for overall planning. Retired workers receive a pension of 35%-60% of the original salary from the labor insurance fund according to the length of service (increased to 50%-70% in 1953).

At that time, the "labor protection regulations" were regarded as the fruits of victory in leading the people to overthrow the three mountains and were warmly supported. Hao Yu, who used to work in the Labor Insurance Bureau of the Ministry of Labor, later wrote an article and recorded a detail. When soliciting the draft, a working group sent to Shanghai read out the provisions to the textile women workers, and there were excited sobs below. A woman worker stood up and said, "I didn't expect such a good thing." * * * The production party is the savior of the people. "

In all kinds of historical materials, there are also stories that newspapers with the Labor Protection Regulations have been snapped up, employees of enterprises have organized waist drum teams to report good news, and workers have turned over their pension savings to the government to support the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. At that time, a popular jingle was: "Socialism is good, and there is labor insurance in sickness and death."

However, the regulations only apply to employees of enterprises, and the pensions of personnel of government agencies and institutions are paid by the state treasury. 1In the mid-1950s, the State Council issued a document stipulating that the pension of government agencies and institutions should be 50%-80% of the salary, and those with "special contributions" could be higher, which was generally higher than the treatment level of employees in enterprises, and once "caused influence among the masses".

What is forgotten by the world is that as early as then, the central government was "considering" how to "merge" the security systems of these two groups, including providing for the aged.

1957 Zhou Enlai said at the enlarged meeting of the Third Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee that the All-China Federation of Trade Unions suggested that administrative organs, institutions and enterprises should implement a unified labor insurance system in order to "reduce the contradiction between workers and staff" and that "the proposal should be decided after the State Council convened relevant departments to study".

However, when the State Council introduced the policy the following year, it only unified their retirement treatment standards, and both their pensions were adjusted to 40%-70% of their wages. But this is only a superficial convergence of treatment, and the two groups still belong to two sets of funding source systems.

Ma Zeng, then Minister of Labor, said in People's Daily that "the Regulations will be revised appropriately in the near future according to the new situation and experience ... and will also be implemented in state organs and institutions."

Xun Wusheng, a former cadre of the Ministry of Labor, once wrote that before the Cultural Revolution, the Ministry of Labor had included the above contents in a draft amendment to the regulations to be submitted, but it was strongly opposed by "some departments".

Since then, China's surging political movements, such as the Great Leap Forward, the Anti-Right Deviation and the Cultural Revolution, have all passed.

Regarding the pension system during the planned economy period in China, Jin Feng, a professor at the School of Economics of Fudan University, told Southern Weekend that the profits and losses of enterprises at that time were also part of the national finance, and there was no essential difference in any operation mode. In many subsequent academic papers, this model was called "national insurance".

Enterprise reform forces society to plan as a whole

In the history of new China, the individual became one of the payers of old-age insurance for the first time, and the old-age insurance system began to move towards the direction of sharing by individuals, enterprises and the state.

1982 The Third Plenary Session of the Twelfth Central Committee adopted the decision on economic system reform. The primary task at that time was to bring state-owned enterprises to the market. However, just after entering the water, the problem of providing for the aged seized the state-owned enterprises.

The book "The Story of * * * and China" records that in some old enterprises such as textile, grain and salt industry, retirement expenses account for more than 50% of the total wages, and some enterprises even exceed the total wages. Some enterprises have suffered serious losses, and pensions have been reduced or stopped, which often leads to petitions, strikes and even suicides of retired employees. The contradiction between the uneven burden of new and old enterprises is very prominent.

In addition, the prosperity of collective enterprises, the emergence of enterprise contract employment mode and the introduction of new economic forms such as foreign-funded enterprises have also made a large number of people unable to be covered by the original pension system.

"Old-age insurance reform was originally forced by enterprise reform," Jin Feng said.

During the planned economy period, many people opposed the name "labor insurance", so the concept of social insurance began to take its place.

However, the new mode of providing for the aged actually first appeared in collective enterprises, which was also the "meaning" of the State Council Economic Restructuring Office at that time. 1982 Shanghai trial insurance company co-ordinates the pension for employees of collective enterprises, that is, enterprises pay insurance premiums to insurance companies according to profits, and employees receive pensions from insurance companies after retirement. This practice soon spread to collective enterprises across the country.

Subsequently, under the guidance of the Ministry of Labor and Personnel's "social pooling of retirement expenses", Taizhou, Jiangmen, Dongguan, Zigong and other places with relatively severe situations or urgent actual needs began to pilot similar practices, and then gradually expanded. The "Seventh Five-Year Plan" formulated the following year clearly stated that units owned by the whole people should gradually implement social pooling of employee retirement expenses.

1986, the State Council issued a number of documents to reform the labor system, which was also a milestone in China's reform and opening up, and was called "breaking the iron rice bowl" among the people.

Zhao Dongwan, then Minister of Labor and Personnel, told Southern Weekend that this is an important guarantee condition for implementing the labor contract system, dismissing employees who violate discipline and solving related problems after the bankruptcy of enterprises, but it is only a "insignificant" beginning for establishing and implementing the old-age insurance system.

According to the regulations, enterprises and contract workers should pay * * * to the retirement pension fund according to their salary level 15%, and the proportion of individual contributions should not exceed 3%. The money will be transferred to the special account of the local labor department to earn deposit interest, and the workers will be paid monthly pension expenses after retirement. For the payment method, please refer to 1978. If it is insufficient, the state will give appropriate subsidies.

In this way, in the history of new China, individuals became one of the contributors of the old-age insurance for the first time, and the old-age insurance system began to move towards the direction of sharing by individuals, enterprises and the state. Southern Weekend reporters consulted the implementation documents of several provinces at that time, and most of them immediately used policies to set the individual contribution ratio at 3%.

199 1 year, the State Council promulgated the outline of "Decision on the Reform of the Pension Insurance System for Enterprise Employees", which was the first major decision on the issue of pension insurance after the reform and opening up.

It is worth noting that it is decided to propose that individuals pay 3% of their wages, "and gradually increase with the development of economy and the adjustment of employees' wages".

Tracing back to the source of "empty account"

At the beginning of the unified account model, in order to cope with the pension expenditure of the "old people", it is bound to misappropriate the personal account funds of the new payment group, which will lead to the "empty account" and bring great risks to future generations.

From/kloc-0 to the late 1980s, the choice of the reform direction of China's old-age insurance system has been entangled in a question: whether to establish a personal account.

At that time, the "personal account" model, represented by the old-age insurance systems in Chile and Singapore, two emerging countries, was attracting worldwide attention. As the name implies, each payer sets up a personal account, and the endowment insurance premiums paid by individuals and enterprises are placed in their own accounts. These funds will be invested and preserved by the corresponding management institutions, and the money inside will be used to pay for their retirement pensions.

Theoretically, this way of providing for the aged by oneself can solve the problem that the pay-as-you-go system cannot cope with the aging population. Previously, whether it was the labor insurance system in the early days of the founding of New China or the overall social reform in the 1960s and 1980s, the corresponding management agencies collected pension insurance money from enterprises or even non-retired employees to pay the pensions of retired employees in that year, which was called "pay-as-you-go system" in academic circles.

In China, some departments and scholars, represented by the Commission for Economic Restructuring, call for the introduction of personal account model. From the 65438+early 1990s, with the assistance of foreign experts, the Commission for Economic Restructuring formulated a plan to introduce personal accounts, and began to carry out pilot projects in Shenzhen and Hainan.

1993 The Decision on Several Issues Concerning the Establishment of the Socialist Market Economic System of the Third Plenary Session of the 14th CPC Central Committee clearly stipulated that individual accounts should be implemented on the basis of overall social planning. This is where the current old-age insurance model begins, which is called "the combination of unified accounts", that is, the combination of overall planning and personal accounts.

Since then, the question of whether the proportion of personal account funds in payment is large or small has become the focus of controversy. Finally, in the policy issued by 1995 in the State Council, we have to incorporate two schemes: making it bigger (16%) and making it smaller (10%), so that provinces and cities can choose by themselves. The former is called the plan of the Economic Reform Commission, and the latter is called the plan of the Ministry of Labor.

According to historical records, on the basis of these two schemes, the proportion of payment varies from place to place, and hundreds of small schemes were once derived from the whole country. In some provincial and municipal plans discovered by Southern Weekend reporters, the proportion of personal accounts ranges from 4% to 17%.

1In the autumn of 1997, the State Council had to unify local standards: individual accounts were set up according to 1 1% of employees' wages, of which individuals paid 8% and enterprises 3%. Individuals can not reach the proportion of the region, the difference is borne by the enterprise first, and then gradually increase, the proportion of enterprise contributions does not exceed 20% of the wages of employees. This means that the original 3% individual contribution ratio should be greatly increased.

But the unavoidable question of reform is, who will bear the cost of transformation? In other words, before the implementation of this system, what about the pensions of those who rely on the pay-as-you-go system, which was also a main reason given by opponents represented by the Ministry of Labor at that time. According to the calculation made by the World Bank, the Commission for Restructuring the Economy and the Ministry of Labor in 1995, the cost ranges from 1 trillion to 3 trillion, which may account for nearly 70% of the GDP of China 1994 at the current price.

Referring to the reform experience of Chile and other countries, this stock group should be raised by finance alone, which is a principle generally recognized by Chinese academic circles. Gao Shusheng, who once participated in the social security reform in the State Council Economic Restructuring Office, vividly called it "the closure of the old system".

In order to solve this problem, in the first half of 1990, economists such as Wu Jinglian and Zhou Xiaochuan, the overall design group of China's economic system reform, had designed schemes such as "cutting up a piece" of state-owned assets and issuing bonds, but they were not adopted later. Wu Jinglian said in "Contemporary China Economic Reform" that "it was opposed by some government functional departments" on the grounds that the state did not owe debts to the old workers.

An expert from the State Council's decision-making advisory body stressed to Southern Weekend reporter that the central government had financial difficulties in the 1960s and 1990s. After the tax-sharing reform, it has gradually become stronger after years of accumulation. At that time, the overall efficiency of state-owned enterprises was not good, and many of them were still trying to get rid of difficulties, and they did not have the realistic conditions to completely cut off the old system.

The official idea is to digest old problems with the new system. Liu Zhifeng, deputy director of the Commission for Economic Restructuring, has publicly stated that it is not important for employees to have money in their accounts before they use it. It is important to pay within the prescribed time limit. The problem of empty accounts is because employees have not accumulated in advance since the founding of the People's Republic of China 40 years ago and need to be gradually digested through intergenerational transfer.

In this way, at the beginning of the implementation of the unified account combination model, in order to cope with the pension expenditure of the "elderly", it is bound to misappropriate the personal account funds of the new payment group, resulting in the personal account becoming "empty account" and bringing great risks to future generations. By 1999, the size of misappropriated personal accounts, that is, empty accounts, had exceeded 1000 billion, and the Ministry of Finance and other departments also protested.

At that time, the State Council Development Research Center emphasized in a report that "the core of the problem lies in trying to avoid the government responsibility left over from the old system".

1at the end of 990, there were state-owned enterprises "laid off for three years" at home and financial crisis abroad. All of a sudden, a large number of employees of state-owned enterprises in the three northeastern provinces and other regions entered retirement in advance, which was unbearable for local and enterprises. Tens of billions of pensions are in arrears in various places, which has also triggered some mass incidents.

The future of the old-age insurance system has become a hot topic, and the future of personal accounts has once again caused controversy.

In 2000, when Premier Zhu Rongji met with foreign scholars who came to China to participate in the seminar on social security system reform, one of the questions raised was "Should China give up personal accounts?" .

At this time, the pressure of aging population is approaching, which means that China's old-age insurance is facing double pressure. The future "empty accounts" calculated by various research institutions are surprisingly high, reaching hundreds of trillions, causing social panic. According to the World Bank's calculation, if the reform is not carried out, by 2030, China's retirement expenditure will account for nearly 50% of the total wages, which may bring serious social and economic problems.

However, Ding Ningning, former Minister of Social Security of the State Council Development Research Center who participated in the design of the reform plan in 2000, told Southern Weekend reporter that it was necessary to distinguish the problems left over from the old system, the problems in implementation and the future aging, but many people did not understand the importance of distinguishing these three problems and still insisted on scaring the government with big empty accounts.

Under the threat of empty accounts, China started from Liaoning, where the contradiction is sharp, and piloted financial subsidies to "make real" personal accounts. In addition, the idea of using state-owned assets to solve this problem has finally been adopted. 200 1 the State Council issued a policy to set up a national social security fund to deal with this problem as a whole. When the State Council requires the initial public offering and issuance of state-owned shares, it must sell the shares at 10% of the financing amount and turn them over to the National Social Security Fund.

However, as soon as it was introduced, the stock market fluctuated, and a few months later, the CSRC was forced to stop. Later, this policy was narrowed down to only state-owned shares listed overseas.

At the end of 2005, on the basis of a pilot project to reduce the proportion of individual accounts in three northeastern provinces and cities, the State Council further reduced the proportion of individual accounts in wages from 1 1% to 8%, with all the money paid by individuals and 20% paid by the unit as a whole.

At this time, China's current endowment insurance model has basically taken shape. According to Zheng Bingwen, director of the World Social Security Center of China Academy of Social Sciences, China has also become one of the countries with the highest payment rate in the world. After ten years of development, the national social security fund is currently less than 900 billion, while the empty account scale has exceeded 2 trillion.

Wang Lin, who worked with Zhou Xiaochuan to reform the social security system, regretted that if the state-owned assets were allocated as a response as soon as possible, these state-owned assets could also benefit from the rapid growth and help resist this problem.

Who will provide the civil service pension?

Under the current system, employees in enterprises can get less than 50% to 60% of their income after retirement, while civil servants can get 80% or even higher.

The reform of the pension system in government agencies and institutions was unsuccessful in the 1960s+0950s, but it was shelved until the enterprises vigorously carried out the pension reform in the 1960s+0980s, and nothing happened.

Zhao Dongwan, then Minister of Labor and Personnel, told Southern Weekend reporter that before the 1986 reform, theoretical circles, relevant departments and enterprises had asked why the labor contract system was only implemented among workers and not among cadres. But he called it "premature"

1992, Cheng Lianchang, then vice minister of personnel, published an article in People's Daily, saying that it is necessary to establish and implement the social endowment insurance system for government agencies and institutions as soon as possible, and separate the endowment insurance expenses from the financial budget. He also put forward the guiding ideology that the pension level should be roughly equivalent to that of enterprises.

From 65438 to 0993, Shanghai, Hainan and Liaoning began to pilot the reform of endowment insurance in institutions and institutions. However, this matter has not been pushed to a higher level like the reform of enterprise employee pension insurance, but has lasted for more than ten years.

At that time, the pension system of government agencies and institutions belonged to the Ministry of Personnel, while the pension system of enterprises was centralized by the Ministry of Labor. At that time, when various reforms were investigated and discussed, the Ministry of Labor often appeared as the main participant, and the Ministry of Personnel did not involve much. This division was a background factor for the thoughtless reform at that time.

1965-1In the early 1990s, the discussion on the reform of endowment insurance was vigorous. However, the Southern Weekend reporter consulted some official and semi-official meeting minutes at that time, and the issue of endowment insurance reform in government agencies and institutions was basically not on the agenda, but was mentioned in one sentence at most.

In 2000, the pension system reform plan completed by the State Council Development Research Center included the simultaneous promotion of the pension system reform in government agencies and institutions, but it was not adopted.

When the reporter of Southern Weekend interviewed many reform participants, the sharpest criticism he heard was, "At that time, everyone was playing dumb and avoiding this matter."

By the early 2000s, the State Council and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security stated in their social security documents that "civil servants and government-funded institutions should maintain the original pension system" and the original pilot areas should consolidate their achievements and "not surrender their insurance".

By the Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee in 2003, "actively exploring the reform of social security system in institutions" was finally mentioned, but it was still a pilot project.

According to Zheng Gongcheng's book "Thirty Years of Social Security in China", only a few of these pilot areas have been included in the reform of enterprise employees' endowment insurance, and others are another dish. With reference to the enterprise reform model, the contribution rate and calculation method are completely different, and the operating balance of this system is funded by the government.

In the following years, from the Civil Service Law to the decision of the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee to the report of the Seventeenth National Congress, the reform of the endowment insurance system of government agencies and institutions was written into it again and again. However, it was not until 2007 that the State Council passed a "Pilot Program of Pension Insurance System Reform for Staff in Public Institutions", which continued to be piloted in Guangdong and Shanghai. However, taking Shanghai as an example, in fact, the pilot project was started as early as 1993.

Prior to this, Gao Shusheng, who participated in the consultation meeting of the pilot scheme, also wrote to the leaders of the State Council to oppose the "merger". He told Southern Weekend reporter that after 1998, the housing and medical reform of government agencies and institutions has begun. If the pension reform is also carried out immediately, the impact will be too great.

At the "two sessions" in recent years, the call for canceling the "dual-track" operation of endowment insurance for institutions and enterprises has been very high. The main reason is that the pension treatment under the two systems is unfair. Under the current system, employees in enterprises can get less than 50% to 60% of their income after retirement, while civil servants can get 80% or even higher.

However, in this regard, there has never been a higher-level New Deal. At the "two sessions" on 20 12, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security Minister Yin Weimin only responded that this system should be improved on the basis of summing up the pilot projects in the future and implemented nationwide at an appropriate time.

Further reading: How to buy insurance, which is good, and teach you how to avoid these "pits" of insurance.