Although business executives in many industries get fat paychecks, as indicated by the Robert Walters survey, most first-line workers do not.

Twenty-year-old Li Min, from Huainan City in Anhui Province, is a waiter in Shanghai. His parents also work in Shanghai, and they must support Li's two younger brothers.

As much as he'd like to chip in, Li can barely cover his own expenses, and he doesn't expect his 1,000 yuan ($159) monthly earnings to rise anytime soon. He plans to borrow some money from acquaintances and open a car wash.

Liu Guobao, a 43-year-old welder in Shanghai, also barely makes ends meet. His monthly salary increased to 3,800 yuan ($606) last year from 1,800 yuan ($287) in 2006. Yet having to raise two school-age daughters, he has little money to squirrel away.

The National Bureau of Statistics said that, although average wages in 2012 grew quite fast, income levels differed across regions, industries and positions, and the income gap is yawning wider.

Income disparity in China is quite high. Last year, the country's Gini coefficient, a gauge of income inequality, reached 0.474 after four consecutive years' drop from its peak level in 2008. Nonetheless, it shows an alarmingly wide gap between the rich and the poor in China.

"Since the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, China has already established an income distribution system suiting its national conditions and development stage. Yet some salient problems still exist in this area," said Zheng Gongcheng, a professor researching social security at Beijing-based Renmin University of China.

Zheng is also a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the country's legislature. He cited such problems as front-line workers' income is still too low, the income gap between various groups is too big, and some people get "grey" and "black" income.

"Increasing ordinary workers' income is a long-term task in the income distribution reform," Zheng said.

Reform suggestions

Public concern over income disparity has prompted government regulatory measures.

Income distribution reform is not as simple as salary reform, said Su Hainan, Deputy Director of the China Association for Labor Studies. Su said that it should involve reform of taxation, social security, social welfare, and other systems.

On February 5, the State Council approved and published opinions on deepening income distribution reform.

The document says that the government will strive to double the average real income of urban and rural residents by 2020 from the 2010 level and let the poor enjoy faster income growth.

Through the reform, the government also aims to expand the middle-income group, sharply reduce poverty, and adjust and regulate excessively high and hidden income.

The government also seeks to raise the share of residents' income in total national income, and increase government expenditure on social security and employment.

The urban-rural disparity is a major contributor to the income gap in China. Some experts say that the urban-rural income gap can explain more than 40 percent of China's income disparity.

Some experts suggest that to shrink the income gap, the government should reform the household registration system, eliminate discrimination against migrant workers, and give farmers greater pricing power when they transfer their contracted farmland.

Monopoly is also another cause of income inequality. Monopoly industries usually pay well, not because their employees work harder, but because of their monopoly of national resources, said officials from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

Even inside state-owned monopoly industries, income is very unevenly distributed. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the National Development and Reform Commission once conducted a survey on salaries in dozens of large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises in several monopoly industries, such as petroleum, telecommunications, aviation and electric power generation. The survey showed that in these companies, the highest-paid employee takes home five to nearly 100 times as much as the lowest-paid employee.

Zeng Xiangquan, Dean of the School of Labor and Human Resources at the Renmin University of China, advocates breaking up the monopolies to let markets determine executive salaries as a solution for this particular form of income inequality.

In addition, income distribution reform should not only be an "incremental reform" but also a "stock reform," said Zheng. That is to say, previous unequal income distribution, as reflected in unequal distribution of accrued wealth, should also be adjusted.

To bridge the gap between the rich and poor, both income and property should be regulated, Su said.

The State Council's opinions on deepening income distribution reform indicate the government may soon levy property taxes beyond the scope of the current trials in Shanghai and Chongqing. The possibility of a consumption tax was mentioned, and the government is exploring the feasibility of levying an estate tax in the distant future.

Zheng also suggested that on one hand, the reform should address some pressing issues, and on the other hand, it should set up stable systems to accommodate rational public expectations. He said that confidence in the future can alleviate people's uneasiness and anxiety.

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