How to Get By When You Have No Money

If your employer and you have paid in for a full 1 year, and you were not the one who chose to resign, you can collect money once you complete unemployment registration. Paid in for 1 year but under 5 years: at most 12 months of benefits. 5 years but under 10 years: at most 18 months. 10 years or more: at most 24 months. While you are collecting, unemployment insurance pays your employee medical insurance for you.

Neither route costs money. First call 12333, or go to the human resources and social security bureau and complain to labor inspection. Once a case is opened, the investigation is finished within 60 working days; the company can be ordered to pay within a deadline, and if it still does not pay by then, it must pay an extra 50% to 100% in compensation. If that does not work, apply for labor arbitration, which closes the case within 45 days. But “case closed” does not mean “money received”: if the company has no assets or the boss has run off, you may win and still not get the money.

Claiming wages, claiming elder support, claiming social insurance or dibao benefits, and losses suffered while acting bravely for a just cause: you can apply for free legal aid for all of these. Call 12348, or go to your local legal aid center. You no longer have to go back to your place of origin for a certificate of financial hardship; an honest statement from you is enough. Defendants who may be sentenced to death, and defendants who are blind, deaf, mute or minors, are always assigned a lawyer.

The relief station provides food and a place to stay, sends you to a hospital if you fall ill, and helps you contact your family. If you have no money to get home, it gives you a ticket. You usually stay no more than 10 days. You come voluntarily and leave voluntarily; it is not detention, and it does not give out cash. Tickets are issued to your place of household registration (hukou) or your place of residence, so decide where you want to go back to before you go.

Public bodies such as employment service centers and human resources markets charge nothing for job referrals, career guidance, policy advice, or employment and unemployment registration. The law also explicitly forbids them from using these services to make money. Registering and posting information at gig-work markets is free too. Take care of unemployment registration while you are there; you need it both to claim unemployment benefits and to be recognized as a person with employment difficulties.

If something suddenly happens to your family, such as a fire, a car accident or a family member suddenly falling seriously ill, and it knocks out your basic living for a while, you can apply to the township government or subdistrict office for temporary assistance. You do not have to be a dibao household already. It is mostly paid as a one-time lump sum, and the amount varies a great deal from place to place.

If your household income divided by the number of people is below the local dibao line, and your household assets also meet the rules, you can apply. At the end of 2024, the national average urban dibao line was 798.1 yuan per person per month, and the rural line 593.9 yuan. What you get once approved is the dibao line minus your household's monthly income per person. If you have a home, a car or savings, or your children can support you, you may not be approved.

Disabled people in dibao families can receive a living subsidy. Those whose disability is rated grade one or grade two and who need long-term care can receive a care subsidy. You can receive both at the same time. Each province sets its own amounts, and they differ a lot; ask your subdistrict office for details. Take your second-generation disability certificate and go to the subdistrict or township office once.

You pay from 400 yuan a year, and public finances add around 700 yuan per person on top. People under extreme-poverty support are fully subsidized; dibao recipients get a fixed-amount subsidy. Letting it lapse has a cost: if you did not enroll during the concentrated period, or did not pay continuously, then after you pay there are 3 months during which medical costs are not reimbursed, and for every 1 more year of lapse, in principle 1 more month is added.

The order is fixed. Before being hospitalized in another province, register first through the “National Healthcare Security Administration” official account; then you settle directly when you are discharged and do not have to pay the full amount up front. If you still cannot afford your share after reimbursement, apply to the township or subdistrict office for medical assistance. If you are employed, you have a medical treatment period of 3 to 24 months depending on your years of work, during which the company cannot dismiss you. Do not touch online loans or high-interest private loans.

For a replacement, the card is issued within 60 days of the day you hand in the form. If you need it urgently, apply on the spot for a temporary ID card as well; it is issued within 3 days and is valid for 3 months. Without an ID card you cannot find work, check into lodging, open an account or claim subsidies; it is the prerequisite for every other procedure.

Once you are recognized, if you pay social insurance yourself you can get a subsidy, in principle no more than two-thirds of what you actually pay, for at most 3 years. If you are hired by an employer or placed in a public-interest job, the employer's share of social insurance is also subsidized. Wages for public-interest jobs are set with reference to the local minimum wage. These jobs do not pay much, but they come with social insurance and are good as a transition. Social insurance subsidies are mostly paid back after you have paid, so you have to front the money.

Training costs you nothing. If you take training and obtain the required certificate, you get a vocational training subsidy; the same person can claim it at most 3 times. College graduates who have not found work within two years of graduating, and unemployed young people aged 16 to 24, can take part in employment internships and receive a basic living allowance during the internship. First look up the “vocational training subsidy catalog” on your local human resources and social security bureau's website; don't sign up for classes at your own expense.

People who took part in job-search coaching had 2.67 times the odds of finding a job of those who did not. What works is: learning specific job-search techniques, presenting yourself clearly, setting clear goals, taking the initiative, and asking people for help. In practice, asking people for help means getting acquaintances to refer you internally.

Employers may not hold on to your ID card, may not collect a deposit, and may not collect money under another name. If an agency did not get you a job, it must refund the agency fee. Training loans, where you pay a training fee before starting work, and pyramid schemes, where pay depends on recruiting people, are both scams the authorities have named. For borrowed money, the part of the interest above four times the one-year LPR is not supported by the courts, but you still repay the principal.

You must meet all three conditions at once: you have no home locally, or your housing area is below the standard; your income and assets are below the standard; and if you are a migrant worker, you must also have been in stable local employment for the required number of years. The waiting period is published locally. This is distant water that cannot quench an immediate thirst, but queuing costs nothing, and the sooner you sign up, the sooner your turn comes.

In national per capita consumption in 2025, food made up 29.3% and housing 21.7%; together the two are more than half, so cutting these two is the most effective. In the author's experience, daily rentals and hourly rooms work out more expensive than a shared rental over a month, and cooking for yourself is cheaper than takeout. When looking for work, ask whether food and housing are provided; a job that provides them wipes out these two big items.

Pensions are based on cumulative years of contributions, not consecutive years; a lapse does not reset them to zero, and once you reach retirement age with 15 cumulative years, you can collect monthly. With employee medical insurance, if you have paid for enough years, you do not need to keep paying after retirement; the number of years varies by place, so call 12393 to ask the place where you are insured. What is really affected are eligibilities that require continuous contributions, such as buying a home, getting local household registration and points systems.

People released after serving a sentence must not be discriminated against in employment, education or social security, and those in hardship are helped by the government to resettle. Those who were under 18 at the time of the offense and were sentenced to 5 years or less have their records sealed, and need not report them when joining the military or looking for work. The term on the defaulter blacklist is 2 years; once you have paid in full, the court should remove your name within 3 working days. Adults' criminal records are not sealed, and must be truthfully reported when joining the military or seeking employment.

This kind of insurance covers what you still have to pay yourself after medical insurance reimbursement, as well as the loss from being off work. Before you buy, look for the four characters “保证续保” (guaranteed renewal): without them, the product may be discontinued next year or its price may go up. You must disclose your health condition truthfully; if you hide something, your claim will be denied. Get your basic medical insurance paid first, then consider this one.

The waiting areas of airports and train stations can get you through a night, and they have toilets and power outlets. But no official data say this is safe. Keep your belongings on your body, don't accept food or drinks from strangers, and stay out of secluded corners. Do not sleep under bridges, by rivers or on construction sites at night. Relief stations provide food and lodging for free; go there first.

Workshops and shops with no business license that owe you wages can still be reported to labor inspection and taken to labor arbitration, and the boss personally can be pursued too. If a labor subcontractor working on subcontracted construction-site jobs owes you money, the general contractor or the project owner pays. Only private work for a household or an individual, such as working as a nanny, is not a labor dispute, and you have to sue in court.