This is also prominently manifested in the further widening of the income share gap and the income gap between urban and rural residents, the excessively large income gap between residents in the eastern, central, and western regions, and the huge disparity between high- and low-income groups.

"In fact, the survey of the gap between the rich and the poor began 15 years ago, but for some reason, these data are never released to the public." Meng Tong said the mystery in one sentence, "The Gini coefficient can intuitively reflect the degree of differentiation between the rich and the poor in society, so it is generally used as a yardstick for adjusting taxes abroad." If the gap is large, you will have to collect more taxes from the rich, and if the gap is small, you will operate in reverse. Probably because of tax reasons, the real results of these surveys have not been released to the public. ”

Some people spend five million dollars to buy a house, 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, but how big the gap is, everyone is confused.

There are many scholars in China who study this issue, but the biggest problem they face is the lack of data to support it, and official statistical agencies have collected household survey data for more than a decade, but they are not open to researchers.

The State Administration of Taxation announced in the previous paragraph that in order to prevent the gap between the rich and the poor from widening, it will strengthen the taxation of high-income groups.

This argument is enough to prove that the government is considering solving the problem of income disparity in the country, but how big is the gap between the rich and the poor in the country? How do you go about measuring it? That's a big problem.

Although the Gini coefficient is a relatively common indicator to measure the gap between the rich and the poor in the world, there has been no official statistics on this figure in China, and the Chinese Gini coefficient calculated by scholars has been running at a high level, and since the 90s, it has exceeded the 0.4 measured by the World Bank, which is generally recognized by the academic community. At present, the average population in the academic community is 0.47 measured by the World Bank.

At present, apart from the Gini coefficient, there is no valid data to measure the gap between rich and poor in China. However, can the statistics of the Gini coefficient made by scholars through limited data reflect the reality of China's complex gap between the rich and the poor? On this issue, the official attitude has been very ambiguous, and it has always refused to deal with it head-on.

As if to echo the government, the domestic academic community has also launched a debate on the sinicization of the Gini coefficient, but so far there has been no result. It is clear that the true picture of income inequality in China is much more than a rough Gini coefficient can cover.

"The biggest problem is the lack of data." Meng Tong explained to Jiang Feng, "For example, in a megacity in the north, the survey sample happened to be taken to the family area of the civil servants of the municipal organs, and the result was that no matter how the neighborhood committee did its work, no one cooperated with the investigation. ”

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

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

"All in all, this work is very difficult to do, so I want to find out through a non-governmental survey agency, at least more credible than the data of the Bureau of Statistics, after all, we are more professional." Meng Tong said. "Actually, it's a really hard job. Although I am not directly involved in the specific work, the information fed back below is very frustrating, for example, if the sample survey is conducted by Mr. Jiang, will you honestly explain your income and property situation to our investigators? Although Forbes' list of the world's richest people has your assets, it is certainly not accurate data, right? ”

Jiang Feng shook his head with a smile and said, "Of course it's impossible, this belongs to a person**, why should I tell them?" In addition, a large part of my personal income is earned overseas, which is obviously not easy to count. ”

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

Jiang Feng nodded in agreement, this inaccuracy is almost certain. Because the rich are basically a privileged class in China, their voice is significantly higher than that of ordinary people, and to a large extent, they may or have influenced some of the government's policy directions, so it is very difficult to get to the bottom of them.

Through various influences and operational means, these people want to avoid exposing their assets as much as possible, or being besieged by heavy taxes, and when the government is under tremendous pressure from a large group of such privileged wealthy people, it is natural to carefully consider what will happen if heavy taxes are introduced.

Over time, it is natural that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, and polarization becomes more and more serious.

In fact, the two measures implemented by the government, whether it is the per capita cash income of rural residents or the per capita disposable income of urban residents, do not conform to international norms, and to a large extent underestimate the income gap between urban and rural residents and even within 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 homeownership is included in household income.

However, according to international practice, even for owner-occupied houses, rent should be calculated at market value, and if this is included, the income gap between urban and rural areas and within urban and rural areas will be further widened.

Furthermore, tens of millions of civil servants across the country enjoy publicly-funded medical care, which is not included in the existing statistics at all.

For example, a family of civil servants in a big city may have a disposable income of 5,000 or 6,000 yuan per month, but if they own a two-bedroom house for rent in the urban area, they will generate a rental income of 3,000 yuan per month, and they also enjoy all kinds of benefits in kind and travel organized by the unit.

The income of such families is at least 70 percent underestimated, and there is no way to keep statistics on the special cars, drivers, secretaries, and wards enjoyed by cadres at all levels.

In addition to the statistical caliber, in the course of the survey, the statistics of various localities are limited to the limitations of manpower and material resources, and the sampling surveys that can be done each year, and the sample size is extremely narrow, and the sampling rate of at least 1/1,000 is required, while the sampling surveys in China often only reach 1/10,000.

"Statistical sampling data from inland areas, the situation is even worse." Meng Tong said to Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng nodded, he had also studied probability theory and mathematical statistics, and knew that if he wanted to do a sampling survey, he should try to achieve an even distribution of samples, that is to say, the more similar the statistical data, the more accurate the results would be. However, the current situation is that the statistical bureau will coordinate with the selected neighborhood committees, and the neighborhood committees will help select the families who are willing to cooperate, which is even more difficult.

Even if they are willing to cooperate, it is difficult to determine whether they have truthfully filled in the declaration of assets and income, and often high-income households tend to conceal their income. As a result, in the survey of high-income people announced by the Bureau of Statistics, there are neither civil servants nor employees of central enterprises in the top 20 occupations of high-income people, and among all the people surveyed, the highest monthly income is only more than 10,000 yuan.

"In fact, your China survey is of little significance, and if you can't determine the cause of the social divide between the rich and the poor, you can't come up with an accurate solution." Jiang Feng explained to Meng Tong, who was a little puzzled, "If the cause of the gap between the rich and the poor is not clear, then it is impossible to take the right solution, in fact, the current domestic income gap problem is very complicated, and the real solution to the problem should be to eliminate the system of dual division between urban and rural areas, rather than uniformly taxing the high-income class, increasing the already heavy tax burden of the Chinese." Of course, this is not to say that I am opposed to raising taxes on the high-income class, in fact, it is more reasonable to impose heavy taxes on people with an annual income of more than one million, such as 50% or more. ”

Meng Tong asked with some surprise: "Doesn't that mean that you need to pay hundreds of billions of taxes every year?!" ”

Jiang Feng smiled and replied: "If they can really implement this tax policy, I personally don't care, money is just a number for me, I'm afraid that some people will jump out and take the lead in opposing it, after all, this will directly touch the vital interests of the privileged class." Of course, I don't believe the government has the courage to brush the tiger's whiskers. You must know that no matter how the times change, the part of the people who have the power is always the richest. ”

"Well, these things are 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 caused by the inequality of opportunities, especially the gap in educational opportunities between urban and rural areas. The disparities between developed and poorer regions, especially the inequalities in the educational opportunities they provide, have led to the greatest inequalities in the gap between rich and poor over the past two decades, while two-thirds of the changes in urban income distribution are attributable to unequal investment in education.

Jiang Feng said: "I have heard a saying before, saying that it is the human capital of the people that ultimately determines the national wealth of a country, and I think this is more reasonable. However, until now, we have not fully understood the causes and processes of changes in domestic income disparities, and if we cannot identify the causes of the social wealth gap through quantitative analysis, we will not be able to propose accurate solutions. ”

Meng Tong rubbed his face a little annoyed and said, "Forget it, it's time to rest, don't talk about these troublesome things." Let's do something else, or why don't we play tennis together? ”

Jiang Feng nodded and agreed.

Today is Sunday, and he specially came over to accompany Meng Tong, so naturally he wanted to follow her wishes.

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