China's people have seen living standards rise in the last 15 to 20 years, or since Deng Xiaoping began the long restructuring of China's economy. Wages have risen. Moreover, in the cities, everybody works. Half the country's labor force remains on the farm, so in the cities there are jobs for husbands, wives and grown children. Households can bring in decent monthly incomes, and they are saving 40 percent of those incomes.
Expenses can be low.
The people have almost no housing cost because housing is supplied by the enterprise or government ministry at which they work. But overall there's not much to buy. It's at the stage of bicycles, not automobiles. So China must increase its productivity if living standards are to progress from here. Employees who now live in dwellings owned by their workplaces will be asked July 1 to buy their housing.