MCLC: China raises rural poverty line

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: China raise rural poverty line
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Source: The Guardian (11/30/11):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/30/china-raises-rural-poverty-line

China raises rural poverty line
There are now 128 million Chinese in rural areas who qualify as poor, 100
million more than under the previous standard
By Associated Press in Beijing

China has redefined the level at which people in rural areas are
considered poor by raising the official poverty line, despite a booming
economy.

A sharp upward revision in the official poverty line, announced by the
government on Tuesday, means that 128 million Chinese in rural areas now
qualify as poor, 100 million more than under the previous standard.

The new threshold of about $1 a day is nearly double the previous amount.
While the revised poverty line is still below the World Bank threshold of
$1.25 a day, the change brings China closer to international norms and
better reflects the country's overall higher standards of living after
three decades of buoyant growth.

The old limit, first set in the 1990s and increased periodically
thereafter, focused on the bedrock poor at a time China was still largely
rural and impoverished. As the country has climbed toward middle income
status, experts from the World Bank and Chinese think tanks have urged the
government to raise the threshold to capture more poor Chinese.

"The previous poverty line underestimated the number of poor people in
rural China," the official newspaper China Daily quoted Wang Sangui, a
rural development expert at Renmin University, as saying. "Only 2.8% of
the rural population was officially considered poor, which was lower than
in many developed countries such as the United States, which has a poverty
rate of about 15%."

With the higher threshold, more people qualify for government assistance.
Funding for poverty relief is also being raised more than 20% this year to
27bn yuan ($4.2bn), the China Daily reported.