This is also prominently reflected in the further widening of the income share gap and the income gap between urban and rural residents, the excessive income gap between residents in the eastern, central and western regions, and the huge gap between high and low income groups.

"In fact, the investigation of the gap between the rich and the poor started fifteen years ago, but for some reasons, these data are never released to the public." Meng Tong said the mystery, "The Gini coefficient can intuitively reflect the degree of the gap between the rich and the poor in society, so it is generally used abroad as a measure to regulate taxation. If the gap is large, you have to collect more taxes from the rich. If the gap is small, you will operate in the reverse direction. Perhaps because of taxation, the real investigation results have not been published in China."

Some people spend 5 million to buy a house, while others only pay one dollar for a haircut. In short, there is a gap between the rich and the poor, which is very certain. Everyone understands it, but everyone is confused about how big the gap is.

There are also many scholars studying this issue in China, but the biggest problem they face is the lack of data support. Official statistical agencies have collected household survey data for more than ten years, but they are not disclosed to researchers.

The State Administration of Taxation announced a paragraph ago that in order to prevent the gap between the rich and the poor, taxes on high-income people will be strengthened.

This statement is enough to prove that the government is considering solving the domestic income gap, but how big is the domestic rich and poor gap? How to measure it? This is a big problem.

Although the Gini coefficient is a relatively common international indicator to measure the gap between the rich and the poor, domestic officials have never had any statistics on this number. The Chinese Gini coefficient calculated by scholars has been operating at a high level. Since the 1990s, it has exceeded the 0.4 calculated by the World Bank. At present, the 0.47 calculated by the World Bank is currently 0.47 calculated by the World Bank.

At present, apart from the Gini coefficient, there is no effective data that can measure the gap between the rich and the poor in China. However, can the statistics of the Gini coefficient made by scholars through limited data reflect the complex and complex gap between the rich and the poor in China? On this issue, the official attitude has always been very ambiguous and has never been willing to deal with it head-on.

It seems to be in response to the government, the domestic academic community has also launched a debate on the sinicization of Gini coefficients, and there has been no result yet. One fact that can be seen clearly is that the real situation of China's income gap is far more than a rough data of Gini coefficients that can be covered.

"In fact, the biggest problem is the lack of data." Meng Tong explained to Jiang Feng, "For example, in a megacity in the north, the survey sampling happened to be drawn to the family area of ​​civil servants of the municipal government. The result was that no matter how the neighborhood committee did the work, no one cooperated with the investigation."

At present, all scholars studying Gini coefficients across the country have basic data from household surveys of urban survey brigades and agricultural survey brigades under local statistical bureaus. The data formed by these household surveys have always been criticized for their accuracy.

For a long time, the statistical system has used two calibers to measure the personal income of cities and rural areas. For rural residents, per capita cash income is used, and for urban residents, per capita disposable income is used.

"Abstract, this job is difficult, so I want to survey it through private survey institutions, at least it is more credible than the data of the Bureau of Statistics. After all, we are more professional." Meng Tong said. "In fact, this job is really not easy to do. Although I did not directly participate in the specific work, the information feedback from the following is very frustrating. For example, if you have been surveyed by Mr. Jiang, will you honestly explain your income and property to our investigators? Although the global rich list of Forbes has your assets, it is definitely not accurate data, right?"

Jiang Feng smiled and shook his head and said, "Of course it's impossible. This is personal privacy. Why should I tell them? Besides, a large part of my personal income is overseas income, which is obviously not easy to count."

Meng Tong clapped his hands and said, "Isn't that right! No rich man is willing to cooperate with this kind of investigation. The tradition of Chinese people is that people are afraid of being famous and pigs are afraid of being strong, and no one is willing to make a head-on bird. Therefore, the survey of the Bureau of Statistics is to hire a group of young people to visit and ask about some data to fill in randomly. Do you think that has a accurate head?"

Jiang Feng nodded in agreement, and this inaccuracy is almost certain. Because the rich are basically a privileged class in China, their weight of speech is significantly higher than that of ordinary people, and to a large extent, it may or has affected some policy directions of the government, so it is very difficult to find out their bottom line.

Through various influences and operational means, these people should try to avoid their property being exposed or being surrounded by heavy taxes. When the government faces huge pressure from a large group of rich people from such privileged classes, they naturally should carefully consider what the consequences will be after the heavy taxes are implemented.

Over time, naturally, the poorer the poorer, the richer the richer, and the polarization becomes more and more serious.

In fact, there are two measurement standards implemented by the government now. Whether it is the per capita cash income in rural areas or the per capita disposable income of urban residents, these two income standards do not comply with international norms, which largely underestimate the income gap between urban and rural residents and even among urban and rural residents.

The disposable income of urban residents refers to the income after deducting various taxes and fees. Compared with rural residents, urban residents have social security, medical care, education and other benefits, which cannot be included in the per capita disposable income statistics. Neither urban nor rural residents' own housing is included in the family income.

However, according to international practice, even for self-occupied houses, income should be calculated based on market price. If included in this regard, the income gap between urban and rural areas will further widen.

Going further, tens of millions of civil servants across the country enjoy public medical care, which is not included in the existing statistics at all.

For example, a civil servant family in a big city may have a disposable income of 5,000 or 6,000 yuan per month, but they own a two-bedroom house in the city for rent, which will generate rental income of 3,000 yuan per month. They also enjoy various physical benefits and organization of travel by unit. Many families never even need to buy rice and oil from the market, and adults and children at home enjoy public medical care.

The income of such families has at least been underestimated by more than 70%. As for the treatment of special cars, drivers, secretaries, and senior officials in the wards that cadres at all levels enjoy, there is even more no way to count them.

In addition to statistical caliber, during the survey, local statistics are limited to the limitations of manpower and material resources. The sampling surveys that can be conducted every year and the extremely narrow sample number require at least one thousandth of the sampling rate, while domestic sampling surveys often only reach one thousandth of the sampling surveys.

"The situation is even worse in the statistical sampling data in inland areas." Meng Tong said to Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng nodded. He also learned probability theory and mathematical statistics. He knew that to do a sampling survey, he should try to achieve even distribution of samples, which means that the more similar the data the statistical data is, the more accurate the results will be. The current situation is that the Bureau of Statistics will coordinate with the selected neighborhood committee of the district that was selected, and the neighborhood committee will help select families who are willing to cooperate. There are more difficulties in this.

Even residents who are willing to cooperate will find it difficult to determine whether they fill in their declaration of property and income truthfully. High-income families tend to conceal their receipts. This has resulted in the 20 occupations of high-income people announced by the Bureau of Statistics. There are neither civil servants nor employees of central enterprises. Among all the people under investigation, the highest monthly income is only over 10,000 yuan.

"Your China investigation actually has little significance. If you cannot determine the cause of the gap between the rich and the poor in society, you cannot propose an accurate solution." Jiang Feng explained to Meng Tong, who was somewhat puzzled, "If the cause of the gap between the rich and the poor is unclear, then the correct solution cannot be taken. In fact, the domestic income gap problem is very complicated now. The real solution to the problem should be to eliminate the system of urban-rural binary division, rather than to collect taxes uniformly on the high-income classes and increase the already heavy tax burden on the Chinese. Of course, this is not my opposition to increase taxes on the high-income classes. In fact, at present, heavy taxes should be imposed on people with annual incomes of more than one million, for example, the tax rate reaches or exceeds 50%, which is more reasonable."

Meng Tong asked in surprise: "Doesn't that mean that the tax you need to pay every year is hundreds of billions of dollars?"

Jiang Feng smiled and replied: "If they can really implement this tax policy, I personally don't care. Money is just a number to me. What I am afraid of is that some people will jump out and oppose it first. After all, this will directly contact the vital interests of the privileged class. Of course, I believe that the government does not have the courage to stroke the tiger's beard. You must know that no matter how the times change, the people who hold power will always be the richest."

"Oh, these things are so complicated." Meng Tong shook his head and sighed after hearing this.

In fact, the most important problem of the gap between the rich and the poor in China is due to inequality of opportunities, especially the gap in education opportunities between urban and rural areas. The differences between developed and poor areas, especially the injustice of educational opportunities they provide, have led to the greatest injustice in the gap between the rich and the poor in the past twenty years, and two-thirds of the changes in urban income distribution are attributed to inequality in education investment.

Jiang Feng said: "I heard a saying before that it is the human capital of the people, which is the factor that ultimately determines a country's national wealth. I think this is more reasonable. But until now, we have not fully understood the reasons and processes of the changes in the domestic income gap. If we cannot determine the causes of the social gap between the rich and the poor through quantitative analysis, we cannot propose an accurate solution. We must know that relying solely on perceptual knowledge to determine the direction of the policy is always inappropriate."

Meng Tong rubbed her face with some annoyance and said, "Forget it, now is a rest time, so let's not talk about these annoying things. Let's do something else. Otherwise, let's play tennis together?"

Jiang Feng nodded and agreed.
Chapter completed!