How is the social security fund raised?

On the basis of analyzing the present situation and problems of raising social security funds in China, this paper points out that it is necessary to establish a financing model in which the state, enterprises and individuals jointly undertake social security funds, and further analyzes their respective positions and responsibilities in financing, and clarifies their respective ways and shares, as well as financial management issues in financing.

As an important part and symbol of modern market economy, the social security system with social assistance, social insurance and social welfare as its basic contents has been widely recognized and accepted by people. Throughout today's countries that successfully implement market economy, without exception, they all have relatively perfect social security systems. The reform of China's social security system started late, which once became a lagging factor restricting the reform of state-owned enterprises and the development of the whole national economy. The primary link and core issue of the reform of social security system is to establish the channels for raising social security funds that meet the overall requirements of market economy system, because raising and establishing social security funds according to certain principles and models is the premise and fund guarantee for the establishment and normal operation of social security system.

First, the status quo and problems of China's fund raising

Looking back on the development of China's social security system, it can be roughly divided into two stages: the first stage is from the founding of New China to the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee. This stage began in 195 1 when the State Council promulgated the Regulations on Labor Insurance in People's Republic of China (PRC), and the social security system with labor insurance as the core content was gradually established in enterprises and administrative institutions owned by the whole people in cities and towns. At this stage, the fund-raising is mainly carried out by the state and the government. In the second stage, since the reform and opening-up, especially after the Third Plenary Session of the 14th Central Committee put forward the establishment of social security system as the content and goal of economic system reform, China has gradually carried out the reform of social security system focusing on pension, medical care and unemployment, issued a series of interim provisions on pension, unemployment and medical care for employees, and successively selected several cities throughout the country as pilots, accumulating experience and finding problems, laying a foundation for nationwide promotion. At this stage, the financing methods were gradually reformed, and various financing schemes were implemented one after another. Later, the social pooling method for enterprise employees' pensions was implemented on a large scale throughout the country. In the early days, cities and counties were the basic units of overall planning, and the enterprises participating in overall planning adopted the method of "fixed income by expenditure, pay as you go". By the end of 1993, all state-owned enterprises have achieved overall planning at or above the city and county level; The endowment insurance for employees of collective enterprises has reached 1927 counties as a whole; Foreign-invested enterprises have reached more than 800 counties as a whole. On this basis, the state has decided to gradually improve the level of social overall planning in various places, and gradually transition from municipal overall planning to provincial overall planning.

It can be seen that after several years of reform, the sources and financing methods of China's social security funds are currently at a special stage of alternating old and new. On the one hand, the financing model under the old traditional planned economy system has gradually disintegrated, while on the other hand, the new financing model that meets the requirements of the market economy system has just started, far from meeting the requirements of standardization and systematization. This alternation between the old and the new leads to the coexistence of various contradictory practices at this stage, which have their own characteristics and obvious problems in the transitional stage.

First of all, although the state no longer monopolizes the financing of all social security funds, the burden on the state and enterprises is still very heavy. The state has a heavy burden, not only because the projects supported by the state finance, such as social relief, social welfare, special care and resettlement, continue to be borne by the state, but also because the state has also borne a part of the social insurance expenses that should be shared by the three parties. For example, at present, the retirement expenses of retirees in administrative institutions are actually borne by the state finance; Although the employee medical system has been reformed in "Two Rivers" and other places, the basic framework of the public medical system has not changed substantially nationwide. At this stage, the burden on enterprises is still too heavy. According to statistics, by the end of 1993, there were 590,000 enterprises of various ownership, with more than 80 million employees and nearly 20 million retired employees, accounting for 60% of employees and 80% of retirees in urban enterprises respectively. However, as far as the sources of raising fees are concerned, most of them are enterprises as a whole, and the individual contribution rate is less than 1.5%.

Secondly, it is related to the heavy burden of the state and enterprises, especially because of the heavy burden of enterprises, which makes it difficult to collect social security funds. In some places, compulsory overall planning even evolved into "friendship" collection. Taking the collection of pension funds from 65438 to 0993 as an example, the national average collection rate is 86%, which is 7%-8% lower than in previous years, and the situation in some cities and counties is more serious. There are objective reasons for the difficulty in raising funds. At present, state-owned enterprises have suffered serious losses. In this case, it is really unbearable to bear too high social insurance premiums. However, in the case of compulsory overall charges by the state administration, enterprises can only take the form of arrears.

Third, due to administrative reasons, the overall fund is levied according to local specific conditions, and the scope and level of overall planning are mainly cities and counties, with different specifications at the provincial, prefectural and county levels. Different regions and different ownership types have different proportions and calculation methods, which leads to a prominent problem, that is, local governments are fragmented, and the burden level of local finance and enterprises is extremely unbalanced, thus the sociality of social security is not fully reflected, which reduces the sharing of overall funds.

Fourth, many funds are responsible for raising funds themselves, the management system is not smooth, and fund raising is not standardized. At present, the collection of social security funds in China involves labor, personnel, health, civil affairs, finance, industry system coordination departments and insurance companies. In particular, many departments mistakenly regard endowment insurance as a piece of fat meat, each vying for a piece, resulting in a "multi-dragon tour" situation with many policies, different standards and overlapping business, which directly affects the reputation of the social security system. The establishment of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security this year indicates that the social security work will be gradually unified and this problem will be solved accordingly.

It can be seen that in order to overcome the shortcomings in raising social security funds in China, standardize the financing channels of social security funds, reduce the burden on the state and enterprises, and so on, China should learn from foreign experience, establish a financing model of social security funds shared by the state, enterprises and individuals, and provide a reliable source of funds for China's social security cause.

II. Financing channels for countries, enterprises and individuals to raise funds

According to the principle of sharing the burden among the three parties, the state, enterprises (the economic units where the workers are located) and individual workers should bear the raising of social insurance funds in a certain way and proportion, usually in the form of national legislation.

(A) the position and role of the state finance in raising social security funds in the process of raising social security funds, the position and role of the state finance can not be ignored. For a long time, the raising of social security funds in China mainly depends on state finance and enterprises. Under the condition of planned economy, enterprises are unified in revenue and expenditure, so they are still financial burdens. One of the directions of social security system reform is the socialization of social security, which should gradually reduce the heavy burden of national finance. Therefore, in the future, the role of state finance in raising social security funds should be mainly manifested in the following aspects:

First of all, it plays the role of organizer and manager. Its primary task is to establish and improve the social security system as soon as possible, do a good job in social security legislation, dredge and straighten out the channels for raising social security funds, and provide a stable source of funds and legal basis for social security funds. In addition, as organizers and managers, we should give appropriate preferential treatment to social security in relevant economic policies, such as taxes and interest rates, so as to promote the development of social security. For example, according to the Basic Plan of Rural Social Endowment Insurance at County Level (Trial) of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the state should give policy support to the raising of rural endowment insurance funds, and its support mode is mainly reflected in paying collective subsidies to township enterprises before tax.

Secondly, we should bear part of the collection of social security funds. When raising social security funds, the government should mainly undertake those security projects that can only be supported by finance, including social relief, social welfare, special care and resettlement and community services. Because social relief, special care and placement, and social welfare belong to the category of national income redistribution, it embodies the responsibility of the state to help people who can't reach the basic living standard and the principle of fairness, and can only be paid by the state finance. The initial stage of community service is also a financial support project. Raising funds for the above-mentioned security projects is the main part of the national financial commitment.

In addition, judging from the support of the state finance for social insurance, the state finance mainly undertakes the following two aspects: First, it manages the administrative expenses of social insurance expenditure, because the social insurance management institution is a non-profit organization, and its personnel expenses and public expenses should naturally be borne by the financial expenditure. The second is to make up for the shortage of social insurance expenses through financial allocation, that is, in the process of raising social insurance funds, the state finance plays the role of "last appearance" and is the backing of social insurance. In the case of difficulties in various projects of the social insurance fund, the state finance, including local finance at all levels, should give appropriate subsidies. It is true that social insurance funds should be raised mainly by enterprises and individuals in accordance with the principle of insurance. At present, most countries in the world adopt this method. However, once the income of social insurance fails to meet the expenses, the finance must give subsidies. Because the management of social insurance funds is not allowed to be unbalanced, specifically, when the pension fund has difficulties in payment. Give appropriate subsidies by the finance at the same level; When the unemployment insurance plan encounters difficulties, it will be subsidized by the local finance.

The government's share in the above social security fund is realized through budgetary allocation. That is, it is completed through the transfer expenditure project of the national budget, which comes from the general tax revenue of the government and the expenditure belongs to the national budget expenditure project. At present, there is no separate social security budget, the national financial resources are insufficient, and the social security funds that can be allocated by the finance are also affected by the financial revenue and expenditure of the whole country. However, from the perspective of standardizing the financing methods of social security funds, it should be clear how much share the state finance should bear, and where to subsidize it finally, and calculate the proportion of this part. This is of great help to overcome the shortcomings of lack of rigidity and irregularity in raising social security funds in China at present. At present, Chinese experts believe that the share of national finance is about 30%-40% of the total social security expenditure (including social welfare and social relief fund expenditure). If it is between this ratio, the burden on the country should be reduced. It is also worth noting that the social security share undertaken by the Finance Office not only refers to the central finance, but also includes local finance at all levels. If unemployment relief is difficult, local financial subsidies will be provided.

It can be seen that in raising social security funds, the state mainly undertakes those security projects that can only be supported by the state finance, such as social relief and social welfare. For raising social insurance funds, the state only plays the role of supporter and backing, mainly relying on enterprises and individual employees.

(two) the responsibilities and obligations of enterprises and individuals in raising social insurance funds.

Under the principle of sharing the social insurance fund among three parties, the economic unit (enterprise) where the worker belongs and the individual worker must bear the corresponding share of the social insurance fund according to their own affordability. According to the overall objectives and requirements of the social security system reform in China, China should gradually adopt the method of sharing social security fees (taxes) between enterprises and individuals, and combine social pooling of pension and medical insurance with individual accounts. Social insurance premium (tax) will become the main source of social insurance fund in China.

Social insurance premiums are shared by enterprises and individuals. The specific operation methods are as follows: firstly, the institutions where the employees work and the employees themselves pay social insurance premiums to the social insurance management institutions in accordance with the prescribed proportion based on the total wages. Then, a certain proportion of the social insurance premiums paid by enterprises for employees is extracted to form a pooling fund to reflect the social mutual assistance nature of social insurance. The social insurance premiums paid by employees and another part of the social insurance premiums paid by enterprises for employees are credited to employees' personal accounts. Among them, the overall fund is mainly used for the pension or medical expenses of the elderly who have retired or are about to retire before the implementation of personal accounts. Personal accounts are mainly used to pay employees' personal pensions or medical expenses. As for the specific proportion of enterprises and individuals, the funds are different:

1, pension fund raising ratio 1995. In March, the State Council issued the Notice on Deepening the Reform of the Old-age Insurance System for Enterprise Employees, requiring all regions to reform the basic old-age insurance system for enterprise employees in their own regions according to one of the two reform schemes of the old-age insurance system for urban enterprise employees recommended by the State Council. The two schemes have made specific provisions on the financing channels and fund establishment of the endowment social insurance fund in China. According to the proportion stipulated in the selected plan, all localities quickly organized fund-raising work. Up to now, 22 provinces, municipalities and districts have put forward the reform plan of combining social pooling with individual accounts. 60/kloc-0.7 million enterprises, 87.382 million employees and 224 1.2 million retirees have participated in the local social pooling of retirement expenses, with a total coverage of about 654.38 billion people. According to incomplete statistics, 1996, the income of the basic endowment insurance fund for urban enterprises reached 102 billion yuan. However, the implementation of the two schemes has also led to differences in the proportion of individual accounts, the proportion of enterprise contributions, management level and payment standards. For this reason, in August 1997, the State Council promulgated the "Decision on Establishing a Unified Basic Old-age Insurance System for Enterprise Employees", which requires all localities to realize the merger as soon as possible according to the new unified plan. The plan redefines the proportion of enterprises and individuals.

According to the new scheme, the proportion of basic old-age insurance premiums paid by enterprises generally does not exceed 20% of the total wages of enterprises (including the part allocated to personal accounts), and a few provinces and autonomous regions. Due to the large number of retirees and the heavy burden of old-age insurance, municipalities directly under the central government should report to the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Finance for approval if it really needs to exceed 20% of the total wages of enterprises. The proportion of individuals paying the basic old-age insurance premium is not less than 4% of their contribution salary in 1997, and it will increase by 1 percentage point every two years from 1998, and finally reach 8% of their contribution salary. In areas where conditions permit and in years when wages increase rapidly, the growth rate of individual contributions should be appropriately accelerated. At the same time, it is stipulated that a personal account for basic old-age insurance should be established for employees according to the amount of 1 1% of my salary, and the rest should be included in the enterprise's payment. With the increase of the proportion of individual contributions, the share of enterprises should be gradually reduced to 3%.

The following points can be seen from the provisions of the above new scheme: (1) stipulating the total social security burden level of enterprises is conducive to reducing the burden of state-owned enterprises and providing a basis for eliminating the unfair phenomenon of excessive burden among enterprises; In the sharing between enterprises and individuals, with the increase of individual burden share year by year, the burden of enterprises is decreasing year by year. This embodies the spirit of reducing the burden on enterprises and giving full play to the role of individuals in fund-raising.

2. Increasing the proportion of medical insurance expenses Because the original medical insurance system in China (free medical care system and labor insurance medical care system) lacks a reasonable medical financing mechanism and a stable source of medical expenses, there has been a problem of tight medical expenses for employees in China for a long time, and on the other hand, limited medical resources are wasted alarmingly. After the economic system reform, the state organization first carried out the pilot reform of the medical system for employees in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu and Jiujiang, Jiangxi. From April 65438 to April 0996, the pilot project was gradually expanded to 57 cities. These pilot projects all adopt a medical social insurance system that combines the establishment of social pooling medical funds and individual medical accounts. The sources of funds are composed of employers and individual employees.

The proportion paid by the employer, "Two Rivers" stipulates that at the beginning of the reform, based on the sum of the total wages of employees and the total expenses of retirees, it will be temporarily extracted at 10%. In the future, it will be adjusted according to the actual changes in economic development and medical expenses. At the beginning of the reform, the individual contribution ratio of employees was temporarily 1% of the total annual salary, and then it gradually increased with the economic development and wage growth. In order not to increase the burden on employees, individual employees should pay medical insurance premiums on the basis of increasing their wages.

The medical insurance premiums paid by individual employees and employers according to the above proportion are respectively included in the social pooling medical fund and individual medical account according to a certain proportion. The Implementation Plan for the Reform of the Medical System for Employees in Zhenjiang City stipulates that the funds of individual medical accounts come from three parts: one is the part paid by employees according to the total annual salary 1%, and the other is the medical insurance fund drawn by the employer according to the total annual salary 10%, which is included in individual medical accounts according to different proportions (over 45 years old and under 45 years old); Third, the medical insurance fund drawn by the employer according to 10% of the annual retirement fee of retirees, half of which is included in the personal medical account. The rest paid by the employer for the employees and the other half of the medical insurance fund extracted by the employer according to the annual retirement fee of retirees 10% enter the social pooling medical fund, which is used by the local social insurance institutions for centralized adjustment. Jiujiang City has similar regulations on the sources of individual medical accounts and social pooling funds.

Facts have proved that the new medical insurance system has solved the problem of raising medical insurance funds well, which can not only meet the medical needs of sick workers, but also avoid the waste of drugs and improve the efficiency of medical resources.

3. Increase the proportion of unemployment insurance funds. The unemployment insurance system in China was gradually established after the State Council issued the Interim Provisions on Unemployment Insurance for Employees of State-owned Enterprises in July 1996. Since the establishment of unemployment insurance, a large number of unemployment benefits and medical expenses have been distributed, and a series of retraining bases and production self-help bases have been established, which have played a very good role in solving the basic living problems of unemployed people in China.

At present, the unemployment insurance fund mainly comes from the unemployment insurance premium paid by enterprises. Enterprises should pay unemployment insurance premiums to social insurance institutions at 0.6% to 1% of the total wages of employees. The specific payment rate shall be determined by the social insurance institution where the enterprise is located (province, autonomous region or municipality directly under the Central Government) according to the local unemployment situation; When the unemployment insurance plan encounters difficulties, it will be subsidized by the local finance. Self-employed workers do not pay unemployment insurance premiums.

Judging from the situation of most countries in the world, the raising of unemployment insurance funds is different from that of old-age insurance. Generally, it is shared by the government and enterprises (employers), and individual employees do not pay or only pay symbolic unemployment insurance premiums. However, in view of China's current and future population and employment pressure, China should broaden the financing channels of unemployment insurance funds and raise unemployment insurance funds according to the principle of three parties sharing. At the beginning, the part paid by individual employees can be lower, so don't give it to individual employees.

To sum up, in raising social security funds, the state mainly supports and supports social security undertakings through financial allocations, and enterprises and individuals pay various social insurance premiums according to a certain proportion. The social security fund mainly comes from these two channels and is jointly responsible by the three parties. So how can we clearly reflect the rights and obligations of the three parties, standardize the behavior of the three actors, and ensure that the three parties strictly perform their duties? Apart from strengthening the legislation, law enforcement and publicity of social security, it is fundamentally helpful to bring the collection of social security funds into the unified management of the national budget.

Three, the social security fund raising should be unified into the national budget.

At present, although China has established the principle that the state, enterprises and individuals share the social security expenses, and started to implement or pilot pension and medical care projects, only the security projects directly allocated by the state finance, such as social relief, social welfare, military pensions and social security of administrative institutions, are currently included in the national budget, while the social security funds of administrative institutions are included in the budget, but they are confused with the recurrent expenditures of administrative institutions. As for the income and expenditure of social security funds for enterprise employees, at present, all social security funds, including endowment insurance for enterprise employees, unemployment insurance and housing accumulation fund, are managed by their competent departments, and these social security funds still belong to the category of extra-budgetary funds. To a certain extent, this situation has caused confusion in fund management, resulting in high fund withdrawal ratio and management requirements, chaotic operation of surplus investment, and loss, misappropriation and waste have occurred from time to time. According to the survey, Shaanxi Province spent 250 million yuan on the endowment insurance fund in five years. Therefore, in order to ensure that all social security funds raised by the state, enterprises and individuals can be used for social security, we must change the current pattern of decentralized management inside and outside the budget as soon as possible and bring social security funds into the national financial budget management.

Unified into the financial budget management, it is necessary to establish a separate social security budget. To this end, we must first change the existing double budget composed of recurrent budget and constructive budget into a three-type budget composed of government public budget, social security budget and state-owned assets operation budget, and re-divide revenue and expenditure. All income and expenditure of social security should be included in the social security budget for unified accounting and management, including some social security income and expenditure that have not been included at present and belong to extra-budgetary funds. The social security budget and other government budgets must be independent of each other. It is particularly important to note that social security income should not be used to make up the government's budget deficit or for other purposes. On this point, it is the common experience gained by many countries in the practice of implementing social security budget.

Secondly, it is necessary to determine the source of social security budget revenue. The income of social security budget mainly comes from three aspects: first, the social barrier tax levied by the state on the whole society according to the principle of tripartite sharing, and at present, China collects various social insurance premiums according to this principle; Second, the government's social security allocation; There is also the investment income accumulated by the social security fund. Social security tax shall be formulated by the fiscal and taxation authorities in conjunction with the labor insurance business department according to the needs and possibilities of social security work, and its tax rate and collection scope shall be paid by individuals and employers respectively; The government social security appropriation, that is, the social security expenditure that should be borne by the state finance, can be directly transferred from the government budget; Investment income is the income obtained by the government from using the balance of income and expenditure of social security funds for investment.

At the same time, we must also determine the social security budget expenditure items. The social security fund must be earmarked for special purposes, mainly used to allocate it to the labor insurance department to establish various social security funds, including pension fund expenditure, unemployment insurance fund expenditure, industrial injury insurance fund expenditure, medical insurance fund expenditure, social welfare fund expenditure, social relief expenditure and other projects. The amount of each fund. It should be included in the unified arrangement of social security budget by the financial department.

Finally, it is about the balance of social security budget. To establish a unified social security budget, we must maintain a balance between revenue and expenditure. Social security budget is different from other government budgets, and generally there will be no deficit. If there is a deficit, the tax rate of social security tax should be raised or the scope and standard of social security expenditure should be readjusted, or the government's social security appropriation should be increased to ensure the balance of the budget. The balance of social security should be operated, mainly for purchasing government bonds and bank savings, and can also be used for government-guaranteed investment projects to ensure the preservation and appreciation of social security funds.

Incorporating all social security funds into the national financial budget is conducive to strengthening the management of social security funds, but some related problems must also be solved. If there must be corresponding social security laws and regulations as the criterion; It is necessary to coordinate and standardize the responsibilities and work of various administrative departments of social security. The most important thing is to change the payment of various social security fees into a unified social security tax to solve the problem of low overall level of social security funds. There are many articles about replacing the current charging form with social security tax, so I won't repeat them here. The solution to the problem of low overall level of social security funds depends on several factors: first, levying social security tax, unifying local tax rates and basic security level will help solve the problem; The second is the speed and degree of development of local economic and social security. At present, the state has decided to unify the national basic pension collection ratio, which is a major breakthrough to solve the problem of low overall level. It is believed that with the further deepening of the reform of the whole social security system, the above-mentioned series of problems will be gradually solved and standardized channels for raising social security funds will be gradually established.

To sum up, in order to meet the overall requirements of the socialist market economic system, China's social security fund will be raised in accordance with the principle of tripartite sharing in the future, mainly relying on two channels: first, social security taxpayers, which come from social security taxes paid by employers and individual employees in a certain proportion; One is the transfer expenditure of national finance, which comes from the general tax revenue of the country. Among them, social security tax will gradually become the main channel for raising social security funds in China, and finance will form the strong backing of social security funds in China. The above two financing channels should be unified into the national financial budget, and a social security budget should be set up for management and supervision.