To better understand the needs of the people in the new era, the Social Survey Center of the Counsellors’ Office of the State Council conducted a random sampling nationwide.

This survey divides society into eight groups: workers, farmers, public institution staff (government officials, SOE management, medical staff, and teachers), white-collars (office workers in private and foreign businesses), business-owners and management (non-SOE), individual proprietors and freelancers, old-age citizens (people over 60 years old in cities and the countryside), and college students. The total sample size is 3,133, covering 25 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions. According to the different sizes and homogeneity of different groups and factors like regions and levels of development in cities, a sample sized between 100 to 600 was determined for each group.

The questionnaires were sent out by graduate students of Peking University and Minzu University and the surveyors of DATASEA Marketing Research, Dataway, and RealWise, who delivered to households and designated places and sent online.

The findings are as following: I The people are generally satisfied and optimistic about the future 1.How satisfied are you about the various aspects of your life? 15% said very satisfied and 53% relatively satisfied. 23% said it was OK, 2% not very satisfied, and 7% not satisfied. 2.How do you think life and the living environment has changed compared with three or five years ago? 30% said much better, 47% a little bit better, 16% almost the same, and only 7% said worse or much worse. 3.How do you foresee life and the living environment in three or five years? 32% said much better than now, 51% a bit better, and only 6% no idea or not clear. It shows that the people are personally feeling the good results of the hard work of the Communist Party of China and the government in governing the country since the 18th CPC National Congress.

II The people’s needs are more diversified and shifting to areas other than the economy We laid out 25 categories of needs, including the living environment, living conditions, public services, and power accessibility. To determine the sequence of important of the various needs, we considered the universality and urgency of the needs and identified a priority indicator for improving the needs as shown in the following table.

Order 25 Categories of Needs universality % urgency Indicator of Priority in Improvement

1 air quality 49.5 1.65 81.9

2 food/drug safety 47.3 1.45 68.5

3 individual and household income 31.8 1.33 42.3

4 housing conditions 28.6 1.30 37.2

5 healthcare protection/not worried about visiting the doctor 37.3 1.00 37.2

6 environmental condition 36.1 0.94 34.0

7 old-age care/not worried about getting old 31.6 0.92 29.0

8 daily means of transport 30.1 0.90 27.2

9 water quality 31.0 0.84 26.2

10 children’s education/not worried about school admission 27.3 0.58 15.7

11 children’s equal access to education resources 29.7 0.49 14.7

12 job security/not worried about the difficulty in finding a job or the possibility of losing a job 24.8 0.49 12.0

13 fairness and integrity in government departments 30.1 0.37 11.2

14 fair and reasonable distribution of income 29.9 0.37 11.1

15 opportunities for landing jobs, starting up businesses, and promotion 25.7 0.42 10.8

16 government services for the people 30.5 0.34 10.5

17 basic rights as a citizen, rights to information, participation, expression, and oversight 25.0 0.21 5.3

18 social safety/individual and asset safety 14.9 0.33 4.9

19 possibility in realizing personal worth/sense of achievement 16.2 0.23 3.7

20 daily necessities such as food, clothing, and others 11.6 0.31 3.6

21 expansive government powers 23.2 0.12 2.8

22 private life respected/ protection of privacy 17.1 0.15 2.5

23 inviolability of private assets 13.1 0.19 2.5

24 colorful life 14.2 0.15 2.2

25 respect from others in work and life 11.2 0.11 1.2