China’s income gap widened in the first quarter of the year, with 10 percent of the nation’s richest people enjoying 45 percent of the country’s wealth, state press reports said.
China’s poorest 10 percent had only 1.4 percent of the nation’s wealth, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing a recent survey by the National Bureau of Statistics.
The income gap has become increasingly worrisome for the government of once-egalitarian China, especially as low- and middle-income earners are increasingly quick to accuse officials of pilfering state assets in the country’s dash toward market capitalism.