Chinese news organizations have reported that the income gap within Chinese cities has grown greater than that between the city and the countryside. I find that a strange fact. What is really going on behind the numbers?
Who are the people in that bottom tier in the city? Workers from the countryside, of course. And when the the gap between the city and rural areas is figured, do they use an average income for the city for those calculations? If so, the low incomes of countryside workers in the cities bring down the higher salaries in the average, and that average is compared with the salaries of the countryside workers who remain in the countryside. That was a breath full. Simply: there is very little new information here.
Reality is this: (contrary to popular quotation) the rich get richer and the poor…stay the same. Of course the gap is widening. The middle class in Chinese cities are taking advantage of new opportunities, and well they should.
The situation for the countryside (including the migrant workers) remains the same. Many of them are moving into town to earn more than they could in the countryside, but that also is nothing new. It throws the statistics off some, but the poor are still doing everything they can with the opportunities they have.
And there lies the primary difference. Opportunity. What can be done to provide more opportunities for rural residents? Do they need to leave their home, often leaving behind wife and children, just to make some money? What resources already exist in the Chinese countryside that are not developed to their full potential? Does the answer lie in the countryside?
These are the questions that truly need answered.
