Statistics collected earlier this month show that the allowance umbrella has covered almost all the urban poor, said spokesman Chen Changjie.

Low-income employees accounted for 50.8 percent of those who received the allowance, while jobless people accounted for 15.5 percent and family members of low-income employees and the unemployed accounted for 28.7 percent.

Impoverished urban dwellers mainly live in central and western China, especially in areas that relied on outdated heavy industry or in resource-depleted mining areas, Chen said.

Eight provinces - Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning and Sichuan - each have more than 1 million urban poor. Anhui, Hebei, Shaanxi, Shanxi and Yunnan provinces, Chongqing Municipality and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region each have between 500,000 and 1 million urban poor.

"Government budgets have played a bigger role this year in promoting the build-up of the country's basic social-security system," Chen said.

Central and local governments have increased the budgeted amount for the minimum living allowance to a total of 10.5 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion) this year. The central government has invested 4.6 billion yuan (US$554 million), while funds from local governments at all levels have reached more than 5.9 billion yuan (US$710 million) - almost double last year's amount.

The country's 19.3 million urban poor exist on a per capita monthly income below the official poverty line of 152 yuan (US$18).

Poor residents in China's major cities have received a higher minimum living allowance this year.

In Beijing, for example, the monthly allowance was increased to 290 yuan (US$35) per person. The allowance in Beijing has been increased seven times since the State Council implemented the Minimum Living-Standard System in 1999.

By the end of 1999, 667 cities in China had begun using such a safety net.

The allowance is calculated by comparing a family's actual standard of living with the local average. Due to variations in the cost of living in different cities, the allowance varies from city to city.

Social-security and fiscal authorities at various levels have speeded up the promotion of the nationwide social-security campaign this year to ensure that all urban needy people have a minimum living subsidy, said Yang Yanyin, vice-minister of civil affairs.

The ministry's next job is to enhance the supervisory system to guarantee that the social-security funds are being properly managed and reach the most needy, she said.

(China Daily July 22, 2002)