Preface
Last year, the national average monthly wage was only 1,838 yuan.
According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on January 17, 2024, the average salary income in the entire fiscal year of 2023 is 22,053 yuan.
Our average monthly salary last year was only about 1,838 yuan, just imagine how sad it would be if you opened this amount of money in a month.
If you zoom in, you'll be even more surprised, with an average annual salary of $3,049 and an average monthly salary of only about $254 based on the U.S. dollar exchange rate of 7.2.
(Only salary income, excluding other asset income and operating income, etc., pay attention to distinguish!)
It is the countryside that is pulling the average down
It's so hard for our rural people to make money!
The most prominent problem is that there are very few jobs in rural areas, and I am deeply touched by the fact that young people in rural areas can hardly find jobs, even in the towns.
The main work of the vast majority of people in rural areas is agriculture, such as growing grain, vegetables and fruits, or animal husbandry and animal husbandry.
The industrial structure of the rural areas is still mainly based on the primary industry, and the agricultural and animal husbandry products have high input but low profits, and cannot create more jobs, so a tractor can replace many people's labor.
The best example is many modern farms in Europe and the United States, where a single farmer is enough to run a huge farm.
The rural industries are already underdeveloped, and the main agriculture cannot provide more jobs, and the income of farmers is very limited.
In 2023, the average median disposable income of urban and rural residents will be 33,036 yuan, of which the median average disposable income of urban residents will be 47,122 yuan, and the same data in rural areas will be 18,748 yuan, with a gap of 28,374 yuan.
It can be seen that the difference between the disposable income of urban and rural residents is huge, even to the point of lowering the average income, and the slow increase in our average income is likely to be the cause of the rural areas.
No matter how much the income of urban residents is raised, the rural areas still have to be dragged down by the rural areas when we turn around and calculate the average, and the peasants' income will always be a shortcoming.
The most important problem in raising peasants' incomes is to increase the number of jobs in townships and towns, so that rural people can at least have a stable source of income and will not be idle for a long time.
It's not that the peasants don't want to work, but that there are too few employment opportunities for them, and the younger ones can still go out to work, and the older ones who can't run can only "mess around" at home.
We have given too many resources and preferences to the cities, and the cities have absorbed too many resources from the countryside, so the income of urban residents is far higher than that of the countryside, but we should not be too proud, our rural areas have paid too much.
Cities should "feed" the countryside
After the mainland entered a period of rapid development, the urbanization rate of the whole country began to increase rapidly, and everyone rushed to the city, because people know that this is the trend of the future and the outlet that changes lives.
The National Bureau of Statistics has relevant data for reference, since 1996, our urbanization has increased rapidly like riding a rocket, from 30.48% in 1996 to 66.16% in 2023.
This is already a relatively considerable urbanization rate, but we can't just look at this data, many of the urbanized population is the rural population transition.
The main reason is that the development of rural areas is sluggish, and if peasants want to have a better income, they have to go to the cities to work, and if they want to take root in the cities, they have to change their household registration and buy houses.
Cities are the core of a region, and they play a role in gathering resources to attract population, which is indeed more conducive to development, and only by concentrating on efforts can we do great things.
However, there are advantages and disadvantages, and the "siphon effect" produced by cities can easily occupy rural resources, and the imbalance of resources can easily lead to unbalanced development between urban and rural areas.
How the development situation can be seen from many aspects, people's income is a good reference, and the income gap between urban and rural areas can be seen from the gap between urban and rural development.
Now that our cities have developed, all kinds of high-rise buildings and asphalt roads have been built, and residents' incomes have also improved qualitatively, and many of them are inevitably due to the contributions and concessions made by our rural areas.
Therefore, after the development and perfection of the city, the city should "feed" the rural areas, and many industries should move closer to the rural areas, and there is no need to squeeze into the cities.
In the past, the countryside supported urban development, and when the city develops, it should give back to the countryside, so that farmers no longer have to leave their hometowns to earn a living.
Low wages also have the "credit" of black-hearted bosses
How our wages are directly equated with the conscience of the boss, many bosses just deliberately do not want to raise the wages of their employees, and even more exaggerated do not even pay their employees.
This kind of thing has been seen in the news for a long time, we workers are desperately trying to make more money, and some bosses are racking their brains to detain employees.
Therefore, many people's low income does not actually complain about the ability of others, but the boss is too greedy, not only to make money in business, but also to save money on employees.
The main reason why the boss dares to be so unscrupulous is the problem of employees, many of us workers do not have much legal knowledge, even if they are bullied by the boss, they do not know how to protect their rights.
This phenomenon is especially obvious among some middle-aged workers, who generally do not have a good education, let alone legal knowledge, and can only swallow their anger when they are bullied by their bosses.
Another is that our labor market environment is not very good, and there are too many people who need employment, but there are only a few good jobs, and almost all of them are replaceable.
This is where the bosses are so arrogant, they are not afraid that they can't recruit people to work, and whoever has an opinion to fire them will find someone to make up for them.
The initiative in the job market is in the hands of the boss, and the workers can only be passive.
Low wages are better than no work, so you have to compromise and accept unfair treatment.
Low wages are linked to "immobility".
This is especially evident in many labor-intensive industries, where many workers in electronics factories do not have any skills at all, and there are no technical requirements for the position, as long as they are a normal person, they can do it.
This kind of low-tech work will not earn high wages in any case, after all, where is the personal ability of the workers, the workers do not create higher value for the enterprise, and the boss is naturally not far away from giving higher wages to the employees.
In addition, a more important point is that this low-end manufacturing industry itself has no technology at all, just to make a difference between major manufacturers, and its own profits are already very low, and enterprises can't make much money, so how to talk about higher wages for employees?
If an enterprise wants to increase its income, it must transform into a high-end industry, and high technology means high profits, but what such enterprises need is "elite" talents, and the demand for ordinary workers is not much.
Rash transformation will also mean that many ordinary workers will face optimized unemployment, which forms two extremes with the high income of high-tech talents, drought and waterlogging.
Therefore, if workers want to increase their income, they can only improve their own ability, and only when they are "valuable" can the boss be willing to pay a higher price.
Some people have low incomes, and they really can't complain about the environment, and if they are weak, they will be eliminated by the market, and they can only watch capable people make a lot of money.
epilogue
In general, our wages do need to be raised, and the income of migrant workers in some backward cities is even lower than the basic salary in first-tier cities.
In addition, we also need to seriously consider the issue of improving the treatment of workers, especially young workers who need more attention from society, after all, they are the group most in need of money.
References:
"Residents' Income and Consumption Expenditure in 2023" released by the National Bureau of Statistics on January 17, 2024