I can see very little special interests that can be promoted by the new labor law. Even the lawyers I talked to opposed it, saying the expected increase in legal business cannot compensate the staffing problems they will have to put up with. Considering the new law is introduced on the 30th anniversary of China’s economic reform and the year of the Beijing Olympics, it is truly baffling.

　　我看不到有什么压力团体会因为新劳法而获益。几位律师朋友也反对该法，说预期的生意增加补偿不了处理员工问题的麻烦。考虑到该法在中国经济改革三十周年及北京奥运的大日子推出，难以明白。

       I have three plausible explanations, and most likely it is a combination of all three, although in economic logic things do not add up. The first reason is that Beijing did not know that the incomes of poor peasants and low-level workers have been sharply rising since 2000, at rates which in my view are unmatched in history. However, workers earning less than RMB 1,600 per month do not have to report tax, and floating workers simply do not report, so their incomes are difficult to assess. More important is the fact that registered population in the villages remains large, although many people have floated away. If one divides the observed total income of peasant households with the registered population, an artificially low per-capita income is obtained.

　　我有三个可能的解释，最可能是三者的合并，虽然经济逻辑加不起来。其一是北京不知道自二○○○年开始，中国的贫苦农民的收入出现了史无前例的迅速增长。不容易知道。月入人民币一千六百以下的不用报税，流动的劳工一般不报，这些人的收入不易估计。更重要是农村的户籍人口依然多，虽然不少流动去了。如果以农户的总收入除以户籍人口，一个不实的低数字会出现。