Generally speaking, the social security system refers to the system and measures that the state and society give material help to members of society who have difficulties in living and guarantee their basic livelihood. It is the product of the development of productive forces to a certain stage and an important symbol of social progress. In 1980s, the world's first complete social security system was established in Germany. After 100 years of development, it has become an indispensable social and economic system in modern countries.
In China, although the concept of "social security" was put forward relatively late, the systems and institutions of disaster relief, famine relief, poverty alleviation and old-age care that appeared in history actually played the role of social security. After the founding of New China, we established a social security system that matched the planned economy, but the level of security at that time was relatively low and the efficiency was not high. After the reform and opening-up, especially after the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China established the reform goal of the socialist market economic system, we began to explore the establishment and improvement of the social security system adapted to the market economy, and successively established medical insurance, endowment insurance, unemployment insurance and industrial injury insurance.
The practice of 29 years of reform and opening up has proved that establishing and perfecting the social security system is an important part of the development of social undertakings in China and plays an irreplaceable role in realizing scientific development and promoting social harmony. To sum up, the social security system has the following four functions.
The first is the role of the "safety net". Social security is where people live. The core function of the social security system is to ensure that people's basic income and basic medical care will not be affected when they are old, unemployed, sick, injured at work and giving birth. People with no income, low income and suffering from all kinds of sudden disasters can meet their basic needs for survival, relieve their worries and build a "safety net" for the people.
The second is the role of "balancer". The social security system has the function of income redistribution, regulating part of the income of middle-and high-income groups, raising the security standard of the lowest-income groups, reducing poverty, appropriately narrowing the income gap between different social members and keeping it at a moderate level. In this way, it can not only narrow the gap between urban and rural areas, regions and members of society to a certain extent, but also promote social fairness and justice and improve the overall welfare level of society.
The third is the role of "booster". A perfect social security system is not only conducive to improving the quality of workers, promoting the orderly flow of labor, stimulating China's economic vitality and promoting faster economic development to a certain extent, but also avoiding excessive expansion of social consumption, guiding the consumption structure to be more reasonable, balancing the total supply and demand of society, and helping to prevent fluctuations in economic development and achieve better development.
The fourth is the role of "stabilizer". A perfect social security system can establish various risk protection measures for workers, help them to eliminate and resist various market risks, and avoid a series of contradictions caused by the lack of basic guarantee for life, thus maintaining social stability. In addition, actively encourage those who get rich first to be enthusiastic about social welfare undertakings, help those in need, and also coordinate the relationship between different social classes, so that different social classes can live in harmony and make common progress.
How to treat the achievements and challenges of social security system construction in China?
"Pay ten dollars and see a doctor for one year!" This is a vivid description of the new rural cooperative medical system by many peasant brothers. Since June 5, 2003+10, the new rural cooperative medical system has been piloted in some parts of the country. The main practice of this system is to make overall plans for serious diseases and give consideration to minor diseases. As long as individual farmers pay 10 yuan, they can enjoy double subsidies from the central and local governments, and the maximum subsidy can be 1 10,000 yuan. By the end of March 2007, 3 1 23 19 counties (cities, districts) in provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government had carried out pilot work, accounting for 810.03% of the national total, and 685 million farmers had participated in the rural cooperative medical care, accounting for nearly 80% of the national agricultural population. It is estimated that by the end of 2008, the new rural cooperative medical system will be basically established in the vast rural areas of China. The implementation and popularization of the new rural cooperative medical system is a silhouette of the rapid development of social security in China. After long-term efforts, China's social security has made great progress, initially formed the overall framework of the social security system, and played an increasingly important role in promoting reform, development and stability.
In terms of social insurance, the coverage of pension, medical care, unemployment, work injury and maternity has been expanding, and the support capacity of social security funds has been gradually enhanced. In recent years, the number of people covered by social insurance has increased by about 6% every year, and the income of social security funds has increased by about 20% every year. By the end of 2006, the number of people participating in basic pension, medical care, unemployment, industrial injury and maternity insurance in China was 6.5438+0.8766 million, 6.5438+0.5732 million, 6.5438+0.65438+0.878 million and 6.5438+0.0268 million respectively. The total income of the five social security funds was 862.6 billion yuan, and the expenditure was 647.2 billion yuan, totaling 823.9 billion yuan. The number of rural old-age insurance participants nationwide reached 53.74 million, with an accumulated fund of 35.4 billion yuan.
Further reading: How to buy insurance, which is good, and teach you how to avoid these "pits" of insurance.