When the Chinese government gathered this month for its biggest political meeting of the year, it laid out big ambitions. It will keep boosting military spending. It will work to dominate artificial intelligence. It will reinforce its manufacturing prowess.

本月为年度最大的政治会议聚集在一起时，中国政府勾勒出了宏大的雄心。它将继续增加军费开支。它将努力主导人工智能领域。它将强化其制造业实力。

But when it comes to some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens, the plan is decidedly less lofty. The government said it would increase the minimum basic pension for rural residents by 20 yuan a month, or less than $3, to a grand total of about $24 a month.

但在涉及该国一些最脆弱的公民时，计划显然没那么远大。政府表示，将把农村居民的基础养老金最低标准每月提高20元，即不到3美元，使总额达到每月163元。

The promised increase is so meager that it has prompted widespread calls for more — even from representatives to China’s rubber-stamp legislature who usually spend their annual meeting praising Beijing’s plans.

这一承诺的增幅是如此微薄，以至于引发了要求增加的广泛呼声——甚至包括中国的橡皮图章立法机构的代表们，他们通常在这场年度会议上都在赞美北京的计划。

“This is just too unfair to farmers,” Guo Fenglian, a representative and village leader who was once praised by Mao as a model worker, told a Chinese reporter at the weeklong legislative meeting in Beijing that ended Thursday.

“对农民有点太亏了，”全国人大代表、曾被毛泽东赞誉为劳动模范的村干部郭凤莲在周四结束的为期一周的北京立法会议上告诉一名中国记者。

Ms. Guo described seeing farmers in their 80s or 90s still working in the fields, sometimes with canes or stooped backs. “They’re already very old and don’t have the physical ability to work anymore. But the cost of living is high,” she said, according to the Workers’ Daily, a Communist Party publication.

郭女士描述了她看到八九十岁的农民仍在田间劳作，有时拄着拐杖或弓着背。“他们已经很老了，已经失去了体力劳动的能动性。但是生活的成本也很高，”据共产党刊物《工人日报》报道，她这样说道。

For many Chinese farmers, the payments are far from enough to live on. The average older rural resident spends about $80 a month on routine expenses, according to a government report published in 2024. About 180 million people receive the rural pension, a cohort that is set to grow as China’s population ages rapidly. (The pension also covers urban residents without salaried work, but the vast majority of recipients are farmers.)

对于许多中国农民来说，这笔支出远不足以维持生活。根据2024年发布的一份政府报告，农村老年人平均每月在常规支出上花费约80美元。约有1.8亿人领取农村养老金，随着中国人口迅速老龄化，这一群体还将继续增长。（该养老金也覆盖没有受薪工作的城镇居民，但绝大多数领取者是农民。）

The paltriness of the pension is one of the clearest examples of the vast inequalities in China’s economy, and the deep-rooted challenges that are often overshadowed by its much-touted progress in high-tech fields. While the country leads the world in sectors like robotics or electric vehicles, many of the workers who powered China’s economic rise, such as farmers and workers in low-end manufacturing, are suffering from stagnating wages and cutthroat competition.

养老金的微薄是中国经济巨大不平等的明证之一，也是一个根深蒂固的挑战，而这些挑战往往被其在高科技领域备受赞誉的进步所掩盖。虽然在机器人或电动汽车等行业领先世界，但许多助力中国经济崛起的劳动者，如农民和低端制造业工人，正深受工资停滞和残酷竞争之苦。

Despite its socialist billing, China has a threadbare social safety net; the country’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has warned against the dangers of “welfarism.”

尽管标榜社会主义，中国的社会安全网却很薄弱；该国最高领导人习近平曾警告过“福利主义”的危险。

Rural residents have also long had far fewer benefits than their urban counterparts. While the average actual payout for rural pensioners is about 246 yuan, or $36, a month, retirees in cities receive on average almost 16 times more, or about $560 a month, according to the government’s 2025 Labor Statistical Yearbook. Retired officials get even more, on average $940 a month.

而长期以来，农村居民享有的福利也远少于城镇居民。根据政府的2025年《中国劳动统计年鉴》，农村养老金的实际发放额为246元（约合36美元），但城市退休人员平均领取的金额几乎是其16倍，即每月约560美元(人民币3800多元)。退休官员得到的更多，平均每月940美元（人民币近6000元）。

Zhou Shihong, a lawyer who is a member of a government advisory body, suggested the government work to close the disparity.

作为政府咨询机构成员的律师周世虹建议政府努力消除这种差距。

“If it relates to government funding or state subsidies, social security should be provided equally to everybody,” he told Chinese media, adding that the government should strive to raise the rural pension to $145 a month by 2030.

“凡是涉及到国家出资或者国家财政补贴，对每个人的社会保障应该是人人均等的，”他告诉中国媒体，并补充说，政府应努力在2030年前将农村养老金提高到1000元。

Indeed, the delegates’ calls for higher pensions were striking largely for their modesty. Some called for a rise to 500 yuan, or $70, a month. That increase, for farmers over 70, would cost less than 1 percent of the country’s budget for general public expenditures, one lawmaker pointed out.

事实上，代表们提高养老金的呼吁之所以引人注目，很大程度上是因为这是个十分克制的诉求。一些人呼吁将金额提高到每月500元（约70美元）。一位立法者指出，对于70岁以上的农民来说，这一增幅所耗费的成本不到该国一般公共预算支出的1%。

周一，在北京参加全国人民代表大会的代表们。

Much of the discussion online has been supportive of calls for more money for rural pensioners.

网络上的许多讨论都支持为农村养老金领取者提供更多资金的呼吁。

But some delegates have sounded notes of caution. The president of a major Chinese electronic appliance company said that even a seemingly small increase would add up quickly. Major state media outlets have largely been silent on the outcry.

但一些代表发出了谨慎的声音。一家中国大型家电公司的总裁表示，即使是看似很小的增幅也会迅速累积。主要的官方媒体对这些抗议声大多保持沉默。

China’s finance minister, in an unrelated news conference last week, acknowledged the importance of ensuring people’s livelihoods but also said that the country’s revenue was “under pressure” and called for reducing expenditures. A slow-moving housing market crash has hurt local government revenues, which rely heavily on land sales.

中国财政部长在上周的一次无关的新闻发布会上承认了确保民生的重要性，但也表示该国的财政收入“承压”，并要求减少开支。房地产市场的缓慢崩盘损害了地方政府的收入，而后者严重依赖土地出售。

Proponents of higher pensions said that with more money, residents would be willing to spend more, which in turn would help the government meet a major goal of increasing domestic demand.

提高养老金的支持者表示，有了更多的钱，居民将愿意花更多的钱，这反过来将有助于政府实现增加国内需求的主要目标。

For many, though, the main argument was more moral than pragmatic. China’s farmers had helped build the country, they said, when Mao-era policies required them to sell their crops for artificially low prices, turn their land over to the state and pay agricultural taxes.

然而，对许多人来说，主要的论据与其说是务实的，不如说是道德上的。他们说，中国的农民曾帮助建设了这个国家，当时毛泽东时代的政策要求他们以人为压低的价格出售农作物，将土地交给国家并缴纳农业税。

They acknowledged that urban residents pay more into the pension system than rural residents do, but said the system did not account for the farmers’ historic contributions.

他们承认，城镇居民向养老系统缴纳的费用比农村居民多，但他们表示，该系统没有考虑到农民的历史贡献。

“These contributions cannot be measured by simple payment records,” a commentary in China Business Network, a Shanghai-based media outlet, said. “Increasing farmers’ pensions is not about providing them with welfare, but rather about paying back a debt.”

“这些贡献不能通过简单的缴费记录来衡量，”上海媒体《第一财经》的一篇评论称。“给农民涨养老金不是给农民发福利，而是在还账。”