The man, identified only by his surname Ru, was handed a social security card on Sept. 24 by staff at the social assistance center in Changde, Hunan Province. It held 424,204 yuan, the South China Morning Post reported.

"I never even dared to imagine it," an emotional Ru told Xiaoxiang Morning Herald, thanking the staff who helped him.

Ru entered a commercial technical school in Zhuzhou, also in Hunan, in the 1970s and then worked for about 30 years at a state-owned shop there, until it went bankrupt in the early 2000s and bought out his years of service.

He spent the payout quickly, fell into debt and quarreled with relatives before turning to scavenging. He later moved to Changde, where he has lived for about 13 years.

Social assistance worker Wu Jinhui and his colleagues found Ru living in an abandoned building in the winter of 2024, and he initially refused their help, according to the SCMP. He gave them his personal details after months of visits and deliveries of daily necessities.

Records showed Ru had reached the retirement age of 60 in 2015 and was entitled to about 3,700 yuan ($550) a month, which had built up unclaimed for more than 10 years.

Pension went unclaimed

Ru believed that after losing his job he had to keep paying pension premiums himself until retirement age, and he gave up because he could not afford to, Xiaoxiang Morning Herald reported.

Chinese law entitles anyone with at least 15 years of cumulative contributions to a monthly pension at retirement age, and Ru's employer had deducted premiums from his salary during his three decades at the shop, according to the SCMP.

China began raising the retirement age for men from 60 to 63 on Jan. 1, 2025, in steps spread over 15 years.

Authorities knew from 2015 that Ru was due a pension but could not find him because he had a collective household registration and no mobile phone, a staff member told Xiaoxiang Morning Herald.

Claiming the money then took more than a year of paperwork across departments in Changde and Zhuzhou.

Ru, who never married and has no children, on Sept. 28 said he plans to repay his sister and a cousin who supported him over the years, settle his debts and keep the rest for his old age. He also intends to rent an apartment and buy a smartphone.

He had been sleeping for six months in the stairwell of a residential building, where the property manager said he kept the space clean, lit candles because there was no electricity and brought over a bottle of cooking oil as thanks before moving out.