Expert Lawyer Details the Differences Between JD and Meituan’s Social Insurance Plans

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JD and Meituan are locked in fierce competition in the food delivery market, and the most conspicuous battleground has been the fight over riders’ social insurance. On 19 February 2025, JD was the first to announce full “Five Insurances and One Fund” contributions for its full-time riders, and Meituan and Ele.me subsequently pledged to pay social insurance contributions for their riders as well. On 21 April, JD published a post taking veiled aim at Meituan over issues such as “not paying social insurance contributions”, “imposing forced exclusivity on riders”, ‘ghost kitchens’ and “algorithmic exploitation”. Meituan responded the very same day: ‘Rather than spreading rumours for clicks, better to make good on your promises.’ On 13 May, the State Administration for Market Regulation and four other government departments jointly summoned JD, Meituan, Ele.me and other platform companies for regulatory discussions over prominent problems in food delivery industry competition.

● JD and Meituan traded insults on their respective promotional channels, drawing a crowd of eager spectators to watch the drama unfold. Source: screenshot from a WeChat official account
With the two giants at war, the gloves came off in an all-out “slanging match”, the state stepped in to mediate, and the workers were only too happy to spectate. Yet even as public opinion and corporate PR spin reached fever pitch, two co-brothers-in-law working at a food delivery station in Zaozhuang, Shandong, died suddenly from overwork, one after the other. The tragedy once again compelled us to look beyond the spectacle and turn to a far more serious discussion of the pressing issues that truly determine riders’ livelihoods.

I. JD vs Meituan: Social Insurance Plans Worlds Apart

JD’s plan is to contribute the full “Five Insurances and One Fund” for its full-time delivery riders and to provide accident insurance and health medical insurance for part-time riders, while also bearing the rider’s share of the social insurance contributions. Meituan’s plan is to subsidise riders’ “flexible-employment” insurance: ‘For riders whose monthly income reaches the lower limit of the relevant contribution base at their place of employment, and who have met that threshold in at least three of the preceding six months, Meituan will subsidise 50% of the cost, calculated on the basis of the relevant contribution base.’

● Currently, Meituan’s social insurance pilot programme covers only two urban districts – Quanzhou in Fujian and Nantong in Jiangsu. Source: Meituan’s official WeChat account

So where exactly do the two plans differ?

The first point of divergence is whether an employment relationship is recognised. JD’s plan acknowledges that its full-time riders have an employment relationship with the platform; Meituan’s plan sidesteps the question of employment status: by supporting full-time riders in enrolling in flexible-employment insurance, it effectively denies that an employment relationship exists between full-time riders and the platform.

The significance of an employment relationship should not be underestimated – it means riders stand to “receive” considerably more: severance pay upon termination of the employment relationship, paid annual leave, double penalty for wage arrears, continued normal pay during employer-ordered work stoppages, increased income from housing provident fund withdrawals, unemployment benefits, and so on.

Secondly, the two plans cover different numbers of insurance types, resulting in different levels of protection. JD’s “Five Insurances and One Fund” comprises pension, medical (including maternity), unemployment, work-injury insurance and the housing provident fund, whereas the flexible-employment insurance Meituan subsidises covers only the basics – pension and medical.

The third difference is the cost borne by riders personally. In practice, the social insurance contributions made under the flexible-employment scheme are no less expensive than those under the enterprise-employee scheme. Take Quanzhou, Fujian, where Meituan runs its pilot, as an example. In April 2025, using a contribution base of 5,000 yuan, the personal costs for a rider earning 5,000 yuan a month under each scheme are as follows:

As the table above shows, under the assumed conditions, the “Five Insurances and One Fund” cost borne by a rider under JD’s plan is only 775 yuan. Once we factor in the fact that the housing provident fund contribution can be withdrawn as personal income, the rider’s effective monthly social insurance cost drops to just 525 yuan. Under Meituan’s plan, however, a full-time rider’s monthly cost for pension and medical insurance alone comes to 1,500 yuan.

Finally, there is the matter of benefits.

First, it is evident that JD’s enterprise-employee social insurance plan covers more insurance types, entitling riders to work-injury insurance benefits and unemployment insurance benefits on top of what Meituan’s plan offers.

Secondly, pension benefits may differ by as much as thirty-fold. Under JD’s plan, riders bear a lighter personal cost, making them far more likely to sustain contributions over the long term and ultimately draw an urban employee pension. Under Meituan’s plan, the heavy personal burden makes it difficult for riders to sustain contributions for fifteen years; many simply stop contributing or let their contributions lapse, eventually falling back on urban-rural residents’ insurance.

According to academic research, the average monthly pension received by urban enterprise employees in China is 30.23 times that received by urban-rural residents. For illustration, in 2017, the average monthly pension for urban-rural residents was around 120 yuan, meaning urban employees would receive approximately 3,627.6 yuan per month.

So, overall, compared with Meituan’s plan, JD’s plan recognises the employment relationship, entails lower contribution costs, covers more insurance types, and offers additional income through housing provident fund withdrawals – making it far better value for money.

On balance, for full-time riders, JD’s and Meituan’s plans could truly be said to be worlds apart!

II. How Do Riders Feel About Paying Social Insurance Contributions?

Even before JD’s and Meituan’s social insurance plans had been carefully examined, a certain “representative” rider voice had already emerged online: in fact, delivery riders don’t want to pay into social insurance. It is true that the social insurance debate should not become a weapon in anyone’s commercial battle, and riders’ own voices deserve to be heard. But their real views on social insurance contributions – and the reasons behind them – are deeply specific and complex.

● In street interviews, some delivery riders believe “the wool comes off the sheep’s back”, fearing that social insurance contributions will reduce their take-home pay; others feel that contributing to social insurance gives them greater security in the job; and still others simply hope it will at least make accessing healthcare easier than before. Source: screenshot from the programme “A Taste of Finance”

“This is a form of protection – of course I want it.” When Xiao Bao learned that JD intended to cover the full “Five Insurances and One Fund” contributions for riders at no cost to them, this was his reaction. At eighteen, he had been working crowdsourced delivery for Meituan for six months. He figured that if contributing to social insurance meant paying a few hundred yuan out of his own pocket each month, he would need to compare the pay on offer from Meituan and JD. “If they pay into social insurance and the wages are about the same, I’ll work for JD.” But then he added, “I might not ride for a living long-term anyway – if I contribute, will I actually be able to use it later?” He hadn’t even finished secondary school, and his understanding of the specific social insurance policies was far from complete.

Xiao Li, 35, had been delivering food in Beijing since 2018 and was now a dedicated delivery rider for Meituan. He completed a high volume of orders and earned a good income. But since 2019, the per-order rate had fallen sharply, and to maintain a high income he now worked virtually every day, logging at least twelve hours a day. He had no objection to contributing to social insurance – he thought it was a good thing – but as yet, there had been no news from his station.

Old Jia, 45, was also a dedicated delivery rider for Meituan in his first full year on the job. He had seen a great deal of life and spoke with hard-won perspective. He had once worked his way up from the shop floor to workshop supervisor at a state-owned factory, only to be laid off. After that he had worked as a courier for SF Express but was dismissed for a mistake. “When we get old and can’t work any more, we can only rely on our pension. The social insurance JD contributes to may not match the pension benefits you get in the public sector, but without any contributions at all, there’s no safety net whatsoever.” He understood that social insurance was a form of protection for himself, so whether a job included contributions was something he had to consider when looking for work. So why had he taken the job at Meituan? “I was just conned!” He laughed ruefully. “The online job ad said riders would get social insurance contributions, but only after three months on the job. Well, it’s been a year and they still haven’t paid in.” For now, though, the income from riding was not too bad. Jia and his wife were both working in Beijing, and they were scraping by. There was nothing for it but to keep going.

“Those factory workers and people with job security – they get sick leave and proper rest breaks. For us, that’s an unthinkable luxury. It’s not just about surviving but about actually enjoying life – that’s a luxury I can’t dream of.” Old Li, 59, an Ele.me rider, sighed. “JD’s ‘Five Insurances and One Fund’ is an even greater luxury. At my age, nearly sixty, I couldn’t join a team like that anyway. It would be wonderful if everyone had it – I think it would be such extraordinary treatment for us, truly wonderful.”

● Young and old alike, delivery riders shuttle through the city every day, caught up in their busy work. Some have neither the time nor the opportunity to wade through the “complicated” social insurance policies; others, even knowing full well how important social insurance is, can only make do under the pressure of everyday reality. Photography: Zhou Pinglang
Although they call it a luxury, are these entitlements and benefits not what so many delivery riders yearn for? In our research, we found that riders’ concerns fall into two main categories: the first is that the policies are in place, but public communication about them is inadequate. Issues such as the transfer of social insurance records and the conditions for receiving benefits, for example, already have clear solutions at the national level. Riders’ worries stem from a lack of awareness of these policies, caused by insufficient explanation from relevant government departments and participating enterprises – they are not actually real problems. The second category involves genuine shortcomings in the social insurance system itself – for example, the design of personal contribution rates, which does reduce workers’ base income and places a heavy burden on them, as well as the imbalance in pension benefits. However, when problems arise, the right response is not to abandon the whole system out of fear of its imperfections, but to foster open discussion, reform long-standing ills, and ensure that all workers can enjoy fairer social insurance coverage.

We must not forget the very essence of social security – that it exists to relieve individuals of the sole burden of bearing risk. The modern social insurance system was pioneered by workers in the early days of industrialisation who, afflicted by workplace accidents, unemployment, illness and old age, were unable to earn a living, and it was first enshrined in law in Germany, where the workers’ movement was most developed. On 10 June 1907, US President Roosevelt said in a speech that work which causes accidents is “done for the employer, and therefore ultimately for the public – to make the worker and his wife and children bear the whole loss is an intolerable injustice”. This idea set the course for a transformation in American law, replacing nineteenth-century common law with a government-mandated insurance system.

China’s Constitution provides that “citizens of the People’s Republic of China have the right to material assistance from the state and society when they are old, ill, or have lost the capacity to work.” In other words, workers who have contributed a lifetime – or even their health – to building society should be provided with the basic material conditions for survival and recovery when they can no longer work and earn a living.

III. Would Paying Social Insurance Contributions for Riders Make Meituan Run at a Loss?

The inherent purpose of social insurance seems self-evident in modern society, yet Meituan has managed to make it the norm for companies not to pay social insurance contributions for their workers. Even in the debate over social insurance triggered by JD, numerous articles have argued that Meituan’s decision not to contribute to riders’ social insurance is driven by its own “reasonable” economic logic – namely, that Meituan simply cannot afford the cost. On the question of costs, one figure widely cited by the media comes from Meituan’s (03690.HK) financial reports: in 2023, Meituan’s delivery service revenue stood at RMB 82.19 billion, accounting for 40% of its total core local commerce revenue, while delivery-related costs reached RMB 90.74 billion. With 21.9 billion instant delivery transactions in 2023, this works out to a loss of just RMB 0.39 per order delivered.

The grievance Meituan wishes to air is this: I’m already making a loss without paying social insurance contributions – wouldn’t contributing only bankrupt me? But is that really the case?

A closer look at Meituan’s financial reports reveals that the delivery service revenue the company cites is not equivalent to the overall revenue of its food delivery business. In other words, the total revenue of the food delivery business is far more than RMB 82.19 billion.

This is because delivery service revenue is primarily composed of the delivery fees jointly paid by consumers and merchants for each order. However, on the merchant side, what is owed to Meituan goes far beyond the “fulfilment service fee” (that is, the delivery charge borne by the merchant). There is also the “commission” that merchants must pay the platform in order to operate their food delivery business.

● Meituan’s revenue, costs and profitability across all business segments in full-year 2023. Source: screenshot from the Meituan 2023 Annual Report

In fact, before 2021, Meituan referred to both the “fulfilment service fee” and the “commission” collectively as “platform service fees” – meaning that even Meituan itself implicitly acknowledged that both were revenue generated by the food delivery business.

● A comparison of Meituan’s merchant service fee model before and after the 2021 fee-rate reform. Source: Meituan’s official website
Perhaps in response to public criticism of the high commission rates charged to food merchants, Meituan undertook a fee-rate reform in 2021, narrowing the definition of “commission” from the total fees charged to merchants to only the “technology service fee”, while the “delivery fee” was separated out on its own. As if by magic, the commission rate instantly dropped from over twenty per cent to around six per cent. This wordplay also “by accident” played a sleight of hand on the media and the public, leading them to mistake delivery service revenue for the entirety of food delivery revenue, overlooking the existence of commissions, and thus portraying the food delivery business as a “loss-making” enterprise. Therefore, once the “commission” is factored in, along with the fees some merchants pay extra to buy premium search rankings on the platform for greater visibility (which fall under Meituan’s “online marketing services” revenue), Meituan’s food delivery business as a whole is clearly profitable – to say nothing of the powerful user retention and traffic that the food delivery business brings to the entire platform, benefits that simply cannot be reduced to a single line of delivery revenue.

It is therefore simply untrue to say that Meituan’s food delivery business runs at a loss, and it cannot be used as a justification for not paying social insurance contributions.

Furthermore, Southern Weekend once worked through the following calculation in a report: if Meituan were to pay social insurance contributions for 10 million riders, its costs would increase by RMB 21.6 billion, while Meituan’s full-year profit for 2023 was RMB 23.25 billion. This, it was argued, still gave Meituan a “legitimate” economic reason to resist contributing to riders’ social insurance.

However, a careful reading of Meituan’s financial reports shows that a substantial portion of its overall profits was channelled into investment in new business segments – Xiaoxiang Supermarket, Meituan Shangou, Meituan Youxuan, and others – with the aim of further market expansion. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, Meituan’s new business segment posted losses of RMB 38.4 billion, RMB 28.4 billion and RMB 20.2 billion respectively. Despite these persistent losses, Meituan did not halt its expansion. By 2024, losses in the new business segment had narrowed to RMB 7.3 billion, suggesting the expansion strategy was beginning to bear fruit.

Furthermore, research and development in new technologies such as drones and autonomous delivery vehicles has been another major area of Meituan’s capital investment; in 2024, Meituan’s R&D spending reached as high as RMB 21.1 billion.

These figures alone should surely be more than enough to cover the RMB 21.6 billion social insurance cost. In reality, they serve as a mirror-image proof of a troubling truth: Meituan’s “business-technology” empire has been built at the expense of riders’ rightful social security entitlements.

IV. Will Paying Social Insurance Contributions for Riders Become the Norm?

On 24 February 2025, in response to the widespread concern among riders that contributing to social insurance would reduce their income, JD once again made an official announcement that it would bear the full cost of “Five Insurances and One Fund” contributions for its food delivery riders. This move may appear to be a gesture of goodwill beyond its legal obligations, but in fact, Marx long ago articulated in the Critique of the Gotha Programme that in a future society, both the “reserve or insurance fund against misfortune and natural disasters” and the “fund for those who have lost the capacity to work” should be drawn from the total social surplus product – that is, from enterprise profits. In other words, the entire cost of social security for all workers in society should be borne by enterprise profits, not deducted from employees’ wages.

● Source: screenshot from the National Database of Laws and Regulations website
The Regulations on Labour Insurance of the People’s Republic of China, promulgated in 1951, already put this principle into practice. Such an institutional design is fully capable of addressing riders’ greatest concern about social insurance contributions – that contributing will reduce their income and lower their pay. Therefore, if JD can genuinely bear the full social insurance cost for its full-time riders, the plan itself is certainly worthy of encouragement. But the question we must ask is whether this is merely a temporary state brought about by competition breaking industry monopoly, or a sustainable norm?

Several business analyses have pointed out that it is precisely the continued expansion of Meituan’s and JD’s commercial empires that has brought their respective businesses into ever closer overlap in the instant retail market. It is only under this competitive landscape that the issue of social insurance contributions for riders has seen new developments.

“Zhongbaozai Xiaoyu”, a Bilibili content creator who works as an Ele.me rider, has observed that since JD’s food delivery service entered the competitive arena, riders’ conditions have noticeably improved. Incentive campaigns have become more frequent, and in bad weather riders now not only receive bonuses but also see their delivery time limits extended – something that had “never happened before”.

But we must not forget that in 2015, when Baidu Waimai, Koubei Waimai and Ele.me could still compete vigorously with Meituan, the per-order rates and subsidy packages for delivery riders across all platforms were far more generous than they are today. Yet all of that disappeared once Meituan achieved a monopoly.

Will history repeat itself? We need to observe these changes with sustained, cautious attention. At the very least, it has indeed broken the “norm” that platforms need not pay social insurance contributions for riders, and we can seize this opportunity to think about what kind of social insurance model riders – and workers more broadly – truly need.

References
‘Notice of the Fujian Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security, the Fujian Provincial Department of Finance, and the Fujian Provincial Tax Service of the State Taxation Administration on Adjusting the Upper and Lower Limits of the 2024 Contribution Base for Basic Old-Age Insurance for Employees’ (Fujian HRSS Doc [2024] No. 76); ‘Notice of the Fujian Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security, the Fujian Provincial Department of Finance, and the Fujian Provincial Tax Service of the State Taxation Administration on Publishing the 2024 Benefit Calculation Base for Basic Old-Age Insurance for Urban Employees and Related Matters’ (Fujian HRSS Doc [2024] No. 139); ‘Notice of the Fujian Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security, the Fujian Provincial Department of Finance, and the Fujian Provincial Tax Service of the State Taxation Administration on Adjusting the Lower Limit of the 2024 Contribution Base for Basic Old-Age Insurance for Enterprise Employees’ (Fujian HRSS Doc [2023] No. 160); ‘Notice of the Fujian Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security, the Fujian Provincial Department of Finance, and the Fujian Provincial Tax Service of the State Taxation Administration on Adjusting the Upper and Lower Limits of the 2024 Contribution Base for Work-Injury Insurance’ (Fujian HRSS Doc [2024] No. 81); “Notice of the Fujian Provincial Healthcare Security Administration on Adjusting the Upper and Lower Limits of the 2024 Contribution Base for Employee Medical Insurance” (Fujian Healthcare Security [2024] No. 53); “Notice of the General Office of the Fujian Provincial People’s Government on Issuing the Comprehensive Work Plan for Reducing Social Insurance Contribution Rates in Fujian Province” (Fujian Provincial Government General Office Doc [2019] No. 29); ‘Notice of the Fujian Provincial Healthcare Security Fund Centre on Adjusting the Highest and Lowest Contribution Wage Bases and Related Matters for 2021’ (Fujian Healthcare Security Fund Centre Doc [2021] No. 44)

‘Notice of the Fujian Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security, the Fujian Provincial Department of Finance, and the Fujian Provincial Tax Service of the State Taxation Administration on Issues Relating to Unemployment Insurance and Work-Injury Insurance Contribution Rate Policies’ (Fujian HRSS Doc [2023] No. 48)

“Notice on Adjusting Work-Injury Insurance Contribution Rate Policies” (MOHRSS [2015] No. 71); “Notice on Issues Relating to Unemployment Insurance and Work-Injury Insurance Contribution Rate Policies” (Fujian HRSS Doc [2023] No. 48); “Implementation Opinions on Provincial-Level Centralised Administration of Work-Injury Insurance in Fujian Province”. According to research, the registration authority classifies online platform delivery riders under the resident services industry, with a work-injury insurance contribution rate of 0.4%.

“Regulations on Housing Provident Fund Management in Quanzhou”

[Sweden] Edward Palmer, Wang Xinmei, and Zhan Peng, “The Public Pension of China’s Urban–Rural Integration: Building a Virtuous Circle between Employee and Resident Insurance Schemes”, Social Security Review, 15 January 2022, Vol. 6, No. 1

Yang Yansui and Qiu Yan, ’40 Years of Reform and Opening Up: From “Retirement Pension” to “Pension”‘, China Human Resources and Social Security, Issue 12, 2018.

[USA] John Fabian Witt, trans. Tian Lei, Accident of Empire: Injury and Death in the Republic of Work, China University of Political Science and Law Press, 1st edn, March 2016.

Yang Yansui and Qiu Yan, ’40 Years of Reform and Opening Up: From “Retirement Pension” to “Pension”‘, China Human Resources and Social Security, Issue 12, 2018.

(Meituan, “Meituan Subsidises Riders’ Pension Insurance – Pilot Programme Launches Today”)

‘In China, the benefit gap between government agencies and public institutions on the one hand and enterprises on the other, within the employee insurance scheme, stands at 2.27 times.’ [Sweden] Edward Palmer, Wang Xinmei, and Zhan Peng, “The Public Pension of China’s Urban–Rural Integration: Building a Virtuous Circle between Employee and Resident Insurance Schemes”, Social Security Review, 15 January 2022, Vol. 6, No. 1

Meituan Financial Reports 2021–2024, https://www.meituan.com/investor/reports

What Is Meituan’s True Commission Rate on Food Delivery? https://www.meituan.com/news/NN241225051008799

How Much Do Meituan and JD Actually Overlap? | Zhaobo Weekly https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/tDlqxcDnBz9DVbnjemztdw

Foodthink Author
Hao Zhengxin
A lawyer at Beijing Guannan Law Firm, specialising in labour disputes. Has represented clients in cases including the Muyuan employee sudden-death case and participated in research on occupational injury protection for workers in new forms of employment.

 

 

Editor: Yuyang

 

Published by Foodthink