Rich Poor Gap Widen in China as Country Thrives on Its Road to Rapid Development

Earlier this year in April， stated that rich and poor gap has been widening in China and it has reached on its highest during last three decades since China’s opening up to the outer world. A recent report last month by Xinhua news agency and Global Times newspaper also confirmed the news citing China’s central Statistics bureau. Local government in most of the provinces in China has started getting worried and implementing new rules to avoid or at least slow down this ever increasing rich poor gap. Out of the steps taken to improve situation， most vital step has been raising the minimum wage. Hong Kong based market watch reported that a total of 16 provinces so far have raised minimum wages by an average of 14.2% citing Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security figures.

A recent survey of Peking University showed that 1% of China’s richest owned 30% of national wealth in 2012 while the poorest 25% at the bottom owned only 1% of the wealth in country. “China’s wealth inequality has spike quickly”， said the survey report published last month while “country’s Gini coefficient has jumped to 0.73 in 2012 from 0.55 in 2002” survey claimed. China’s official Gini coefficient was 0.473 last year， according to data from CIA’s world factbook.