The reform would also gradually eliminate the egalitarian aspect of the current wage system by providing appropriate differentials for workers with higher qualifications. Under the current system, for example, the salary of economists has been below that of engineers, and the salary of engineers has been equivalent to the wages of skilled workers. This problem has been repeatedly considered in the past, but its solution was delayed for lack of funds. Zhivkov also cited shortcomings of the prevailing piecework system and suggested some long-range remedies for the ills. About 60 percent of all workers have been employed on the piecework system. Production norms under the system have been low because of technological advances and the infrequency of adjustment of norms. Under these conditions workers have been able to exceed the basic norms to such an extent that payment for work above the norm has become a large, and in some cases the predominant, portion of the workers' earnings. Striving to increase their wages, workers under the piecework system have often resorted to shortcuts that have lowered the quality of output. Zhivkov's proposal for improvement included the introduction of more realistic and more flexible quantitative and qualitative production norms and a gradual transition to hourly rates of pay with bonus payments for superior work whenever the quantity and quality of output is not directly dependent on individual workers. Under these conditions bonus payments would be linked to the performance of the entire working personnel, and the importance of the bonus in wage payments would be enhanced. The wage reform has been discussed in the context of a broad program, announced by the BKP Central Committee plenum in December 1972, for a general rise in incomes and an improvement in the population's level of living. In the process the difference between urban and lagging rural incomes is to be eliminated. Implementation of the program has been made contingent upon the attainment of greater productivity and output through workers' efforts to surpass production and efficiency targets set by the government. These more difficult targets must be embodied in what have been officially labeled workers' counterplans. The BKP and the government have launched a new form of so-called socialist competition among workers and economic units, the aim of which is to exceed in performance the requirements of the counterplans.