Original article by Lindsay Maizland in Vox --------------------------------------------- [h=2]Chinas growing income gap could be bad news for the communist party.[/h] While nearly 2 million Chinese people live on less than $2 per day, the economic powerhouse is also home to more billionaires than the United States. And yet, new data by the World Wealth and Income Database shows economic inequality is worse in the US than it is in China. Rising inequality continues to be a primary concern in China, as many officials see inequality as a chief cause of public unrest and a potential threat to the communist partys survival. However, this report suggests that the government still has a chance to stop the level of inequality from reaching levels as high as the United States. The United states has a long history of wide wealth and income distribution gaps. The new data shows that the top 1 percent of earners make 20 percent of total income in the country, while the bottom half only make 12 percent of the total income. In China, the gap is completely different. The earners at the bottom actually collectively make more than the top earners. The bottom 50 percent make 15 percent of the total income and the top make around 13 percent. Another key difference between income inequality in China and the US has to do with growth in income for both groups since 1978. In China, all groups experienced huge increases in their incomes as a result of Chinas economic reforms in the 1980s. But in the US, the bottom 50 percent saw absolutely no growth over the same time period. Even though the income gap in China isnt as wide as the US, as Chinas GDP has reached similar levels as the United States in the past few decades, inequality has also drastically risen. Ever since China opened to foreign investment and trade and reformed its economic system in the 1980s, the top 1 percents share of income has more than doubled. Income and wealth equality is a pillar of the Chinese Communist Party, so the growing income gap may become an existential crisis for the party. Officials continually attempt to achieve fair income distribution for all citizens and curb unrest through policy. In recent years, the government has increased rural residents incomes, reduced tax burdens on middle- and low-income groups, and placed caps on senior government enterprise officials salaries. The government has also worked to drastically cut down on corruption, though wealth from corruption is not accounted for in this report. The report, published in the National Bureau of Research, combined data from governments financial accounts and information, surveys, and fiscal reports to estimate pretax income inequality in China and the US, and several other countries. The authors acknowledge that their estimates for China may be lower than reality because of tax evasion and limitations on gathering tax data and national accounts. The reports authors, Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, recommended their own policy suggestions to curb rising inequality, including improving education and access to skills for the bottom 50 percent and boosting minimum wages. Chinese President Xi Jinping has also recognized that income inequality is a critical problem within the country and around the world. In his speech at Davos in January, Chinese President Xi Jinping recognized income inequality as one of the most alarming problems facing the world. At present, the most pressing task before us is to steer the global economy out of difficulty. The global economy has remained sluggish for quite some time. The gap between the poor and the rich and between the South and the North is widening, said Xi. - - - Updated - - - Make America great again...
in China they were all equal when they were all starving to death under communism, now that 2/3 have escaped to capitalist riches you would call it a genuine and incredible miracle from God,(actually from Milton Friedman) not a problem.
yes!!! equality equates to starvation. This is why 120 million slowly starved to death in USSR and Red China.
Income Inequality has been measured by economists for a great long time. It has become a bit more popular only recently as stark differences between like countries begin to appear. One of the more visually comprehensible versions is the Gini Index as shown here: Oh perhaps more visually understandable, here: However one looks at it, one should do so by comparing apples with apple and not oranges because both are fruit. So, compare the Index/Ratio/Coefficient (take your pick) between like economies. And that means between the US and the EU - not the US and Germany, or the US and the UK. In that regard, the comparison is a bit more vivid (from OECD here): US - 40 EU - Between 25 and 35 The above merely shows this: *Why the three strongest currents of migration are from South & Central America to the US & Canada, and Africa & the Middle-east to Europe. And *The heavier internal taxation (and redistribution) the more fair the Gini Index (meaning lower in value as shown in the world-map above ...)
It is also incorrect. China has about the same Gini Coefficient as the US presently. What happened in the past happened in the past under a hardliner Communist government. That same kind of centrally-controlled governance is in place but it has changed in a dramatic way operationally since the 1980s. (But that's another story altogether as explained here, for those interested in the facts and not just emotion.) China today is depositing more patents than the US yearly, and it is also graduating more per capita of its population from postsecondary education. So, inevitably, China is going to have a "rude awakening" - and which is probably happening under the surface presently. China, sooner or later, must make the difficult move to an "open democracy" where "real elections" are held in a fair, democratic fashion. It will come in time, but how bloodless that change might evolve remains to be seen ...
I'm not confident that Gini measurement can distinguish between 43% and 47%, so I wouldn't quibble. The two countries are at about the same level. It's interesting that the President of China sees this as a problem; the President of the United States does not. As for the inevitability of democracy in China... I would very much like to believe you are right, but I just don't see it. There's no such tradition, and there's no example of an effective, efficient democracy with hundreds of millions of people. The best hope (and far from certainty) is a combination of respect for human rights and Confucian rule. Singapore, multiplied by five hundred. Efficient government requires knowledgeable rulers. The world today is too complex for demos to be knowledgeable.
I wouldn't quibble as either, but I don't think comparing China and the US is at all correct. The nearest comparison to the US - in terms of market-economies - is the EU. And there the difference is very stark. But, let's try to compare apples-with-apples. The total population of both market-economies is unequal - the US with 320 million and the EU with 740M. So, lets just take a same selection of population size, that is: Germany, France, UK, Italy and Spain (the 5 major economies) with a population size of 325K similar to that of the US at 320M. The comparable Gini Index of the EU subset is 32.3, meaning the US Gini Coefficient is 46% more (or less fair) than the EU Gini Coefficient (for equivalent populations) ...
exactly and you have insufficient food when libsocialism discourages everyone from producing it. When China switched to capitalism they instantly stopped starving to death and instantly got rich. Capitalism is greatest social welfare program in human history by a factor of 100!!
