Wealth and health key for Chinese (3)

People's happiness is based on sufficient materials and although Chinese people's income has been rising in recent years, it grows slower than the government's fiscal revenue, and has been offset by rising consumer prices, he said.

A recent report released by the labor and wage institute affiliated with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security showed that fiscal revenue grew by 24.8 percent in 2011 from the previous year, nearly twice the year-on-year increase rate of urban residents' income in the same year.

Yin Xingmin, an economist with Fudan University in Shanghai, said the primary tasks to close the widening income gap are promoting labor productivity and regulating the income of employees in monopoly industries.

The long-anticipated national income distribution reform plan is expected to be released by the end of the year.