Income gap, a woe for China and US

The United States and China have found something in common lately, after the US Census Bureau announced that last year the income gap between the richest and poorest US citizens was the widest in recent history.

The top-earning 20 percent in the US, those making more than $100,000 a year, received 49.4 percent of all the income generated in the US, compared with the 3.4 percent received by those 14.3 percent Americans below the poverty line.

The ratio of 14.5-to-1 makes the US the country with the largest income gap in the Western industrialized world and represents a growing trend, as the ratio was 13.6 in 2008 and 7.69 in 1968.