2025 No. 1 Document targets wage hikes for migrant workers, rural poor
The 2025 No. 1 Document – the annual rural policy guidance from the Party Central Committee and State Council, which dropped Sunday – is firmly focused on raising rural incomes.
It instructs officials to ensure rural industries – like agritourism and ecommerce – actually raise living standards for rural people by creating good jobs, and by ensuring farmers benefit from higher food prices and village land use dividends.
The doc also calls to ensure key poverty alleviation programs continue, including:
- Assisting households that are on the verge of falling back into extreme poverty, often through illness or old age
- Cataloguing public assets developed as part of the poverty alleviation campaign – such as rural community centers and brand-building projects – and ensuring there's a plan in place to manage them
ICYDK: Xi Jinping launched a targeted poverty alleviation campaign in 2014 to end extreme poverty by 2020. In 2021, the effort was repackaged under the banner of rural revitalization.
Third, the doc calls for focused support for migrant workers, including:
- Better including them in urban housing support programs, schools, and public medical insurance schemes
- Stipulating that their rights to farmland, homestead land, and dividends from their rural collective must be protected as long as they retain rural residency
Get smart: Beijing understands that topline GDP growth doesn't always translate into improved living standards for those living on the periphery – this year's No. 1 Document is designed to address that discrepancy.
Get smarter: Over time, expanding employment and increasing rural incomes will have an outsized impact on consumption.