Poverty is represented not only by objective well-being indicators which include income and consumption levels, but also by subjective indicators which reflect what a person feels. It is estimated in this article that the incidence of subjective well-being poverty (SWP) among the Chinese rural elderly population in 2006 was 9.7 per cent, about 4.2 times as much as that of the country's total rural population in the same year, which was 2.3 per cent. Over 16 per cent of the rural elderly population and 11.5 per cent of the urban elderly population rated their life satisfaction as poor or very poor. In terms of SWP, senior citizens, especially those who live in rural areas or who are women or very aged, have become a special group among the poor in China. This article suggests that China's social policies for the new stage take into account the issue of absolute poverty and also that of SWP. A multi-dimensional strategy system targeting the issue of poverty needs to be established, and a policy system to address poverty reduction as well as old age security and care should be implemented