Practical Pathways for Promoting Common Prosperity in the Digital Age

Chinese-path modernization is the socialist modernization of common prosperity for all the people. The proposal for the 15th Five-Year Plan emphasizes “taking solid steps toward common prosperity for all the people,” which is an overarching requirement guiding economic and social development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. In the current and coming period, promoting common prosperity for all the people faces the profound impact of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. How to better translate the digital dividend into the people’s tangible sense of happiness and fulfillment is a practical issue that must be addressed in promoting common prosperity in the digital age. This requires us, on the basis of a deep grasp of the rich connotations of common prosperity for all the people, to identify the practical pathways for solidly promoting common prosperity for all the people in the digital age.

中国式现代化是全体人民共同富裕的社会主义现代化。“十五五”规划建议强调“推动全体人民共同富裕迈出坚实步伐”，这是指导“十五五”时期经济社会发展的一个总体性要求。当前和今后一个时期，推动全体人民共同富裕面临新一轮科技革命和产业变革带来的深刻影响。如何把数字红利更好转化为人民群众实实在在的幸福感和获得感，是数字时代推动共同富裕必须回答的现实课题。这要求我们在深刻把握全体人民共同富裕丰富内涵的基础上，找准数字时代扎实推动全体人民共同富裕的实践路径。

Plan on the basis of the overall situation

立足全局谋划

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, “Common prosperity for all the people is an overall concept, directed at society as a whole. It should not be divided into one piece for cities, another for rural areas, or one piece for the eastern, central, or western regions, each setting its own targets; it must be viewed from the overall situation.” [1]1 Xi Jinping, “Solidly Promoting Common Prosperity,” *Qiushi*, No. 20, 2021. This important thesis profoundly reveals the holistic character of common prosperity for all the people. Common prosperity involves political, economic, cultural, social, and many other aspects. We must adhere to a systems perspective, plan on the basis of the overall situation, focus on issues such as unbalanced regional development, employment difficulties for certain groups, and the need to further expand the middle-income group, and coordinate the balanced development of all regions, fields, and links. While seizing the opportunities of the digital age, we must proceed from overall planning to systematically prevent and resolve risks and challenges that digital and intelligent development may bring, such as structural unemployment, widening distribution gaps, and unequal opportunities. The goal of common prosperity for all the people should be dynamically embedded into the medium- and long-term development planning systems and regional evaluation systems of all localities. Big data calculations, large-model simulation and deduction, and other methods should be used to improve the accuracy of trend judgments, enhance policy evaluation capabilities, and strengthen the forward-looking, systematic, and regional coordination of planning.

习近平总书记指出，“全体人民共同富裕是一个总体概念，是对全社会而言的，不要分成城市一块、农村一块，或者东部、中部、西部地区各一块，各提各的指标，要从全局上来看”。这一重要论断深刻揭示了全体人民共同富裕的总体性特征。共同富裕涉及政治、经济、文化、社会等方方面面，要坚持系统观念，立足全局谋划，着眼区域发展不平衡、部分群体就业困难、中等收入群体有待进一步扩大等问题，统筹推进各地区、各领域、各环节协调发展。在把握数字时代机遇的同时，要从全局谋划出发，系统防范化解数智化发展可能带来的结构性失业、分配差距扩大、机会不公平等风险挑战。要把全体人民共同富裕的目标动态化地嵌入各地中长期发展规划体系和区域评价体系，运用大数据测算、大模型模拟推演等方式提升趋势研判精度，提高政策评估能力，增强规划的前瞻性、系统性和区域协调性。

Common prosperity for all the people means that the people are prosperous in both material and cultural-ethical life. In his “Explanation of the Proposal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development,” General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, “With a view to promoting common prosperity in the people’s cultural-ethical life, the Proposal calls for promoting and practicing the core socialist values, vigorously developing cultural programs, accelerating the development of cultural industries, and enhancing the dissemination and influence of Chinese civilization.” [2]2 Xi Jinping, “Explanation of the Proposal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development,” *People’s Daily*, November 4, 2020. This important exposition profoundly indicates that promoting common prosperity requires placing cultural development in a prominent position and achieving an organic unity of material and cultural-ethical progress at a higher level. We must accelerate the digital and intelligent transformation of cultural industries, increase the digital and intelligent supply of public cultural services, ensure that high-quality cultural resources reach the grassroots directly, use digital and intelligent technologies to narrow the cultural service gap, better develop and flourish socialist culture, and promote common prosperity in the people’s cultural-ethical life and the well-rounded development of the individual.

全体人民共同富裕是人民群众物质生活和精神生活都富裕。习近平总书记在《关于〈中共中央关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十五个五年规划的建议〉的说明》中指出，“着眼促进人民精神生活共同富裕，提出弘扬和践行社会主义核心价值观，大力繁荣文化事业，加快发展文化产业，提升中华文明传播力影响力”。这一重要论述深刻表明，推动共同富裕必须把文化建设摆在突出位置，在更高水平上实现物质文明与精神文明有机统一。要加快文化产业数智化转型，加大公共文化服务数智化供给，推动优质文化资源直达基层，利用数智技术缩小文化服务鸿沟，更好繁荣发展社会主义文化，促进全体人民精神生活共同富裕与人的全面发展。

Adhere to overall consideration and coordination

坚持统筹兼顾

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, “Our common prosperity is about better meeting the people’s needs for a better life, gradually achieving overall prosperity and universal prosperity, insisting on combining the market and the government, unifying efficiency and fairness, dividing the cake well while making it bigger, and creating an olive-shaped distribution structure.” [3]3 Xi Jinping, “Speech at the Central Economic Work Conference,” December 15, 2023. This exposition reveals that promoting common prosperity requires overall planning and handling of several major relationships, among which three pairs of relationships are particularly important in the digital age.

习近平总书记指出，“我们的共同富裕，是要更好满足人民美好生活需要，逐步实现整体富裕、普遍富裕，坚持市场和政府相结合、效率和公平相统一，在做大蛋糕的同时分好蛋糕，打造橄榄型分配结构”。这一论述揭示了推动共同富裕需要统筹处理好若干重大关系，其中三对关系在数字时代尤为重要。

Properly handle the relationship between the government and the market. Promoting common prosperity requires an organic combination of an effective market and a competent government. We must accelerate the building of a high-level socialist market economy system, promote the deep integration of the real economy and the digital economy, give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, and promote the optimal combination of factors such as data, technology, capital, and labor. At the same time, we must better play the role of the government, focus on solving the problem of market failure that may arise from the development of the digital economy, strengthen supervision and guidance, enhance digital governance, and prevent platform monopolies and the disorderly expansion of capital.

处理好政府和市场的关系。推动共同富裕要实现有效市场和有为政府的有机结合。要加快构建高水平社会主义市场经济体制，促进实体经济和数字经济深度融合，充分发挥市场在资源配置中的决定性作用，推动数据、技术、资本、劳动力等要素优化组合。同时，更好发挥政府作用，着力解决数字经济发展可能带来的市场失灵问题，加强监督和引导，强化数字治理，防止平台垄断和资本无序扩张。

Properly handle the relationship between efficiency and fairness. While digital and intelligent technologies empower industrial upgrading and promote production efficiency, they also bring problems such as algorithmic discrimination and the digital divide, which may trigger social inequality. Efficiency and fairness must be combined and run through the entire process of digital and intelligent transformation. By improving algorithmic governance rules, strengthening platform supervision, and improving digital infrastructure construction, opportunity fairness, rule fairness, and market fairness should be embedded simultaneously into new industries and new business forms, promoting social fairness and justice while improving efficiency.

处理好效率和公平的关系。数智技术在赋能产业升级、促进生产效率提高的同时，也带来算法歧视、数字鸿沟等问题，可能引发社会不平等。必须把效率和公平结合起来，将其贯穿于数智化转型全过程，通过完善算法治理规则、加强平台监督、完善数字基础设施建设等，把机会公平、规则公平、市场公平同步嵌入新产业新业态，在提升效率的同时促进社会公平正义。

Properly handle the relationship between production and distribution. On the one hand, we must consolidate the material foundation of common prosperity in promoting high-quality development, especially by more fully transforming data, computing power, algorithms, and other factors into driving forces for the development of productive forces. On the other hand, the distribution system is a basic system for promoting common prosperity. We must adhere to the principle of distribution according to work as the mainstay, with multiple forms of distribution coexisting, and promote the construction of a coordinated institutional system of primary distribution, redistribution, and tertiary distribution. In response to changes in the income distribution order and wealth accumulation mechanism brought about by the rapid development of new industries and new business forms, we must pay attention to improving institutional norms for labor remuneration and other aspects, continuously improve the mechanisms for wage determination, reasonable growth, and payment guarantees, promote the reasonable growth of workers’ remuneration, and thus strive to increase the share of household income in the distribution of national income and the share of labor remuneration in primary distribution, enhancing the stability of household income growth.

处理好生产和分配的关系。一方面，要在推动高质量发展中夯实共同富裕的物质基础，尤其是把数据、算力、算法等更充分地转化为推动生产力发展的动力。另一方面，分配制度是促进共同富裕的基础性制度，要坚持按劳分配为主体、多种分配方式并存，推动构建初次分配、再分配、第三次分配协调配套的制度体系。针对新产业新业态快速发展带来的收入分配秩序和财富积累机制的变化，重视健全劳动报酬等方面的制度规范，不断完善工资决定、合理增长和支付保障机制，促进劳动者报酬合理增长，从而努力提高居民收入在国民收入分配中的比重、劳动报酬在初次分配中的比重，提升居民收入增长稳定性。

Focus on key breakthroughs

聚焦重点突破

Improving people’s wellbeing is the essential requirement for achieving common prosperity and reflecting social fairness and justice. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, work on people’s wellbeing is placed in a more prominent position. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized, “We must ensure and improve people’s wellbeing in the course of development, do more practical things that conform to the people’s will, benefit their livelihoods, and warm their hearts, and continuously meet the people’s aspirations for a better life in all ethnic groups.” [4]4 Xi Jinping, “Speech at the Central Conference on Work in Xinjiang,” July 12, 2023. Faced with the changes brought by the digital age, we must pay more attention to leveraging the leading role of digital and intelligent technologies in ensuring and improving people’s wellbeing.

增进民生福祉是实现共同富裕和体现社会公平正义的本质要求。“十五五”时期，民生工作被置于更加突出的位置。习近平总书记强调，“坚持在发展中保障和改善民生，多办顺民意、惠民生、暖民心的实事，不断满足各族人民对美好生活的向往”。面对数字时代带来的变化，要更加注重发挥数智技术在保障和改善民生中的牵引性作用。

Strive to promote high-quality and full employment. Strengthen dynamic monitoring and analytical evaluation, promote the forward shift of risk identification and the pre-positioning of policy guidance, and promptly hedge against the structural employment shocks that may be triggered by the widespread application of new technologies. Build digital and intelligent employment service platforms, improve the lifelong vocational skills training system, strengthen digital and intelligent technology training and general skills cultivation, rely on digital and intelligent platforms to enhance job matching, job transfer training, and employment service supply, and enhance workers’ ability to adapt to new positions.

着力促进高质量充分就业。强化动态监测与分析评估，推动风险识别前移、政策引导前置，及时对冲新技术广泛应用可能引发的结构性就业冲击。构建数智化就业服务平台，完善终身职业技能培训体系，强化数智技术培训与通用技能培养，依托数智化平台提升岗位匹配、转岗培训与就业服务供给，增强劳动者适应新岗位的能力。

Strengthen the protection of workers’ rights and interests. While new industries and new business forms innovate employment models, they also bring problems such as ambiguous labor relations, extended working hours, and dispersed employment responsibilities. We must strengthen the construction of a rights and interests protection system for workers in new forms of employment, improve the identification of labor relations, the guarantee of workers’ rest and leave, and the protection against occupational injuries. Improve the coordination mechanism for the prevention, resolution, and supervision of labor disputes to ensure that measures to protect workers’ rights and interests are implemented and effective.

增强劳动者权益保障。新产业新业态在创新用工模式的同时，也带来劳动关系模糊、劳动时间延长、用工责任分散等问题。要加强新就业形态劳动者权益保障制度建设，健全劳动关系认定、劳动者休息休假保障、职业伤害保障等。完善劳动争议预防、化解与监管协同机制，确保劳动者权益保障措施落地见效。

Promote the expansion of social security coverage and quality improvement. Fully utilize digital and intelligent technologies, focus on implementing special coverage expansion actions targeting groups such as flexible employees and workers in new forms of employment, and improve the ability for precise identification and dynamic management. Accelerate the application of digital and intelligent technologies in the field of social security, improve the quality and efficiency of handling services, enhance the convenience for flexible employment and new employment groups to participate in insurance and receive benefits, and weave a tight and solid safety net for ensuring people’s basic needs.

推动社会保障扩面提质。充分运用数智技术，重点实施面向灵活就业人员和新就业形态劳动者等群体的专项扩面行动，提高精准识别与动态管理能力。加快数智技术在社会保障领域的应用，提高经办服务质量与效率，提升灵活就业、新就业形态群体参保及待遇享受的便捷度，织密扎牢民生兜底保障安全网。

Accelerate policy implementation

加快政策落地

As digital and intelligent technologies deeply embed into all links of economic and social operation, people’s wellbeing governance not only needs to meet new requirements such as more timely, precise, and efficient responses, but also faces new challenges such as cross-domain coordination, cross-departmental collaboration, and online-offline synergy. We must further strengthen policy articulation, achieve integrated guarantees for the entire life cycle needs of childbirth, childcare, education, employment, housing, social security, medical care, and elderly care, and continuously improve the basic public service system. Through policy support, guide social forces to participate in the supply of public services, forming a diversified supply pattern led by the government, operated by the market, and coordinated by society.

随着数智技术深度嵌入经济社会运行的各环节，民生治理不仅需要回应更及时、更精准、更高效等新要求，而且面临跨领域协调、跨部门协作、线上线下协同等新挑战。需进一步加强政策衔接，实现生育、托幼、教育、就业、住房、社保、医疗、养老等全生命周期需求的一体化保障，不断健全基本公共服务体系。通过政策支持引导社会力量参与公共服务供给，形成政府主导、市场运作、社会协同的多元供给格局。

First, with the goal of equalization of basic public services, focus on key areas such as childcare, education, medical care, and elderly care, and improve the quality of public services through digital and intelligent means. Promote the sinking of resources in the field of people’s wellbeing and online collaboration, accelerate the age-friendly development of digital technology, promote the instantiation and transparency of basic public service supply, and enhance the accessibility of public services in the context of digital and intelligent development.

其一，以基本公共服务均等化为目标，针对托育、教育、医疗、养老等重点领域，通过数智化提升公共服务质量。推动民生领域资源下沉与在线协同，加快数字技术适老化发展，促进基本公共服务供给的即时化与透明化，提升公共服务在数智化背景下的可及性。

Second, strengthen the integrated management of livelihood services, break down data silos between departments, and establish a cross-departmental coordination mechanism for livelihood services. Use digital-intelligent technologies to improve the quality of livelihood service supply, policy evaluation, and governance effectiveness, and establish an integrated governance mechanism driven by digital intelligence, featuring multi-stakeholder participation and dynamic management, so as to effectively raise the level of public services.

其二，加强民生服务一体化管理，破除部门数据壁垒，建立跨部门民生业务协同机制。用数智技术提升民生服务供给质量、政策评估与治理效能，建立数智驱动、多元参与、动态管理的一体化治理机制，切实提高公共服务水平。

Third, enhance the interconnectedness and interactivity of digital-intelligent transformation in areas such as income distribution, public services, and social governance. Accelerate the construction of a whole-process digital management platform, promote the digitalization of the entire chain from policy objectives to process monitoring to outcome evaluation, and leverage the advantages of digital governance to better advance common prosperity.

其三，提升收入分配、公共服务、社会治理等领域数智化转型的关联性、互动性。加快建设全过程数字化管理平台，推动政策目标、过程监测、效果评估全流程的数字化，发挥数字治理优势，更好推动共同富裕。

(The author is a specially appointed researcher at the Research Center for Xi

（作者系中国社会科学院习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想研究中心特约研究员、马克思主义研究院马克思主义原理研究部主任）