Stories about economic growth often begin with numbers: what percentage of GDP, how much increased budget revenue, how record exports reached? But for working families, the clearest measure lies in the monthly spending book, where each tuition fee, hospital fee, and travel expense is a constant concern.
Ms. Minh Van - a worker in Thanh Hoa - said simply: "This month, tuition fees for children are significantly reduced". Behind that simple saying is a big change. When the tuition fee exemption policy is widely implemented, millions of families like her not only reduce a few hundred thousand or a few million VND each year, but also reduce a silent pressure that has haunted them for a long time: Worrying whether their children will be fully educated or not.
From a policy perspective, this is a shift from supporting encouragement to ensuring fair and substantive access to education. From a life perspective, people clearly feel the "light burden": An essential expenditure is removed, and the remaining income can be used for other needs or accumulated when difficult.
Not only stopping at education, policies to care for and invest in people are expanding to healthcare - a field that many people are still concerned about because of costs every time it is mentioned. The roadmap towards basic hospital fee exemption, based on the foundation of universal health insurance according to Resolution No. 72-NQ/TW of the Politburo, is showing a different approach: Not waiting until people are seriously ill to support, but towards early and remote health care.
Free health check-up programs and periodic disease screening are being implemented in many localities, helping people detect diseases early, treatment costs will be lower, and financial burdens will also be lighter.
Social security policies such as bus ticket exemption are also very practical. Workers going to work, students going to school, if travel costs are saved, that is the income that is retained. More importantly, the policy also contributes to changing travel habits, reducing traffic pressure and improving the urban environment.
When putting these policies side by side, one can see a common point that social security is no longer fragmented support packages, but is gradually becoming a system covering the most essential needs of the people, from education, treatment, and travel. And more importantly, people no longer "hear" about policies, but have begun to "feel" it with their daily spending.
At this time, economic growth is not only shown through numbers, but is gradually "reaching into people's pockets" in the most specific ways. In other words, economic growth has been and is returning to serving people.
When essential expenses are reduced, when the worry of food and clothing is no longer as heavy as before, people will have more room to think further about the future of their children, for the quality of their own lives. That is also the goal to be aimed at, turning economic achievements into the happiness of the people.
However, a question that also needs to be raised is whether tuition fee exemption, towards hospital fee exemption, is synonymous with better quality? If schools are still overloaded, if grassroots healthcare is not strong enough, then policies, no matter how humane, will be difficult to be complete.
Therefore, sustainable social security lies not only in reducing costs, but also in ensuring that people enjoy worthy services. Only then will policies truly go the full way, from reducing the burden of spending to improving the quality of life for each citizen.
