How to Determine the Standards of Relative Poverty after 2020?—With Discussion on the Feasibility of "Urban-Rural Coordination" in Relative Poverty

"Relative Poverty" is a new concept in the poverty alleviation work of China. The connotation of relative poverty determines that the goal of poverty alleviation involves not only income increase but also income distribution. Therefore, the transition from absolute poverty to relative poverty puts forward more requirements on the working ideas and means of China's future poverty alleviation work. This article estimates the scale of relative poverty under different relative poverty standards, and proposes suggestions for setting relative poverty standards based on the actual situation in China. The conclusions are as follows. First, in the short term, the "urban-rural coordination" plan is not feasible. According to the "one line between urban and rural areas" algorithm, it is concluded that more than 80% of the poor are still distributed in rural areas, and the differences between urban and rural areas have not been fully considered. Second, it is recommended to set the relative poverty standards by urban and rural areas, taking 40% of the median income level of per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents as the baseline. The corresponding urban relative poverty line is about 12 000 yuan, and the incidence of urban relative poverty is 9%, which translates to about 70 million people in urban relative poverty; while the corresponding rural relative poverty line is about 5 000 yuan, and the incidence of poverty is about 11%, which translates to about 60 million people in rural relative poverty.