The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a report issued on
Sunday that China's urban income gap between rich and poor has
widened to an alarming and unreasonable level.
The NDRC made the announcement in line with a social
investigation into China's urban residents and relevant statistics
from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The NDRC said China's income gap is continually expanding. At
present, China's Gini Coefficient (an internationally accepted
measurement of income equality) is 0.4, the international benchmark
for alarm.
And the NDRC warns the actual figure may be even higher as a
number of incomes may have been underestimated.
Statistics show that the 20 percent low-income group in China's
cities only get 2.75 percent of the country's total urban income,
or equivalent to only 4.6 percent of the income of China's 20
percent top-level rich group.
The NDRC said the widening income inequality gap is occurring in
line with China's economic and social development.
It attributes the growing income gap between different
industries, between the employers and the employees, and the
increase in income earned outside of main work as the main reasons
for the inequality.
Professor Li Yingsheng of the Renmin University of
China, who participated in the social investigation on urban
income, said China is still lacking an income adjustment
mechanism.
Professor Li urges the government to further increase the
proportion of middle-level income groups and try to raise the
income of the lowest-level groups, to achieve a stable social
classification.
Officials with the NDRC said the government has also pledged to
take tougher measures in the coming years to curb the increasing
inequality and make China's income distribution more
reasonable.
(Xinhua News Agency February 7, 2006)