这项转变之所以重要，是因为中国约有 3.58 亿人的流动劳动力长期撑起经济增长，却难以完整分享繁荣成果。城市化与社会保障缺口也压低了家庭消费：中国家庭支出约占 GDP 的 40%，比日本低约 10 个百分点；而流动人口历来的储蓄率是城市同侪的两倍。Rhodium Group 估算，若其消费行为接近城市居民，理论上可释放相当于当前家庭支出 13% 的额外消费。
但落实并不便宜。Rhodium 估算，将一名普通农村劳工转为城市居民的成本约为 133,000 元人民币（$20,000），若推广到全部流动人口，总额约 48 兆元人民币，约相当于 GDP 的三分之一。国务院方案仅简略提到省级政府需提供财政支持与增加土地指标，却未给出具体融资安排；在房地产崩盘后、地方财政受土地出让收入下滑拖累之际，北京可能需要更直接的中央资金，否则改革将耗时多年。
China's latest hukou reform aims to give migrant workers access to public services in the cities where they work, regardless of residency, but the new rules do not say how the policy will be paid for, which could weaken its impact. The household-registration system that splits people into rural and urban residents is obsolete, and the central challenge is how to share the pension and healthcare costs of turning villagers into city residents among companies, local governments and the central state.
The change matters because China's 358 million-strong migrant workforce has powered growth while being unable to fully share in it. The urban-rural gap also suppresses household consumption: spending is about 40% of GDP, roughly 10 percentage points below Japan, and migrants have historically saved at twice the rate of urban peers. Rhodium Group estimates that if migrants spent like city residents, China could unlock extra consumption equal to 13% of current household spending.
Implementation will be expensive. Rhodium estimates that converting one average rural worker into an urban resident costs about 133,000 yuan ($20,000), and extending that to the entire migrant population would total roughly 48 trillion yuan, or about one-third of GDP. The State Council plan only briefly mentions provincial funding support and land quotas, but no concrete financing package; with local finances strained by falling land sales after the property slump, Beijing may need to provide more direct central funding, or the reform could take years.