Gains in purchasing power have been more modest because of high inflation. But poverty has been eliminated. Compared to just a decade earlier, when 70 percent of the project area residents had incomes close to the official poverty line of 167 yuan, by 1991 all incomes were above the adjusted poverty line of 210 yuan. Even during the severe drought of 1988, NCPA communities maintained themselves without recourse to relief rations, which had been common in the past. While income distribution has become more uneven, increases in income have enabled project households to improve their housing, nutrition, clothing, and possession of consumer goods.
Beneficiaries point with pride to new and larger brick houses and tiled roofs.
Middle school enrollment has doubled in Anhui. Rates of school attendance by girls are now more comparable to rates for boys. The supply of health services has expanded, and users now pay for the services they receive. The barefoot doctor has been displaced by increasingly professional and specialized health services. Homes for the elderly who do not have families to care for them have been established for the first time.