Recently, a friend asked: By 2024, how many retirees are there in our country? How much pension can they receive in a year?

In fact, many people tend to confuse retirees with all elderly people receiving pensions.

On June 17th, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Finance issued a notice on adjusting the basic pensions of retirees for the year 2024. Retirees generally refer to those who have retired from enterprises and institutions. In fact, when the state established the retirement system in the 1950s (mainly based on the "Interim Provisions on the Retirement of Workers and Staff"), to receive a retirement allowance, one must go through the retirement procedures and follow the national regulations on retirement age and requirements.

However, in 1992, the state implemented the reform of the basic pension insurance system for enterprises, and a basic pension insurance system for enterprise employees was established nationwide. This is a continuation of the original enterprise retirement system. Retirees who were originally in enterprises gradually transitioned to the enterprise employee pension insurance system, which is supported by the enterprise employee pension insurance fund.

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In October 2014, institutions and public service units also implemented the reform of the pension insurance system. The payment and benefit calculation model of the pension insurance also adopted the relevant model of enterprise employees. According to the "Social Insurance Law," when the pension insurance fund is insufficient for payment, it is subsidized by government finance. Therefore, the retirees of institutions and public service units have also implemented the pension insurance fund for retirement.

Also in 2014, the state introduced a document to establish a pension insurance system for urban and rural residents. The new rural pension insurance and urban resident pension insurance, which were originally piloted in various places, were merged into a unified urban and rural resident pension insurance, unifying the urban and rural treatment. This type of pension insurance has low payments and benefits, and it also allows for making up 15 years of pension insurance payments when the retirement is less than 15 years, which is relatively flexible and is a supplementary mechanism to the employee pension insurance system.

The urban and rural resident pension insurance is the first time our country has unified the urban and rural pension treatment. The benefits related to the urban and rural resident pension insurance are also called pensions, but we do not call the people receiving pensions retirees.

According to the 2022 statistical bulletin on the development of human resources and social security, by the end of 2022, the number of insured people in the urban and rural resident pension insurance in our country was 549.52 million, and the number of people receiving benefits was 164.64 million. However, the expenditure of the urban and rural resident pension insurance fund that year was 404.4 billion yuan, and the average treatment per person was only 205 yuan/month.Compared to 2021, the total number of urban and rural residents receiving old-age insurance benefits was 162.17 million people, with the pension fund expenditure amounting to 371.5 billion yuan, averaging about 190 yuan per month.

How many retirees are there?

According to the statistical bulletin figures, by the end of 2022, the total number of retirees participating in the basic old-age insurance for urban workers in China was 136.44 million, an increase of 4.87 million compared to the previous year. The annual expenditure of the pension fund was 590.35 billion yuan, with a monthly average benefit of about 3,600 yuan per person.

Following the 14th Five-Year Plan for the development of human resources and social security, it is estimated that China will have about 40 million new retirees during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, averaging about 8 million per year. Due to the continuous improvement of China's economic and living conditions, as well as the increasing medical standards, the average life expectancy is continuously rising, and thus the number of retired elderly is also showing a trend of continuous increase.

At the current rate of increase, by the end of 2024, the total number of retirees in China is expected to reach 146.18 million.

The expenditure of the pension fund was 513.01 billion yuan in 2020, 564.81 billion yuan in 2022, and 590.35 billion yuan in 2023, with an unstable growth rate. The estimated expenditure is likely to reach around 6.2 to 6.3 trillion yuan in 2024.

According to the financial data on social security fund revenue and expenditure published by the Ministry of Finance for 2023, the amount of financial subsidies for retirees' pension insurance funds has reached 1.3 trillion yuan per year (including enterprises and institutions, excluding urban and rural residents' old-age insurance).

Overall, with the continuous development of the economy and society, the pressure of supporting the elderly is indeed increasing. Despite this situation, it is very commendable that the pension benefits for retirees in 2024 can still maintain a growth rate of 3%. This is truly a testament to the effectiveness of the national policies. #Top Headline Creation Challenge# #Pension Fund Knowledge#