They need to save to send money home. And those who are lucky enough to come from families who are not living at the edge of abject poverty need to save money for what comes afterwards, since no one last more than three to four years in these factories, given the grueling overtime hours and harsh conditions. So this expense alone would consume 19 percent of your total wage. In fact, between 1990 and 1998, the share of total urban income in Chine shrunk for the bottom 20 percent of the people to 5.5 percent from 9 percent, while the share held by the top 20 percent leapt from 38.1 percent to 52.3 percent. Since 1985, family income as a percentage of China s GDP has fallen from 57.7 percent to 45.5 percent as wealth has shifted to the corporations.
China now has a more unequal distribution of wealth than the United States has.
North American companies have consistently claimed that their presence in China would set an example of respect for human and worker rights, and that this example would spread throughout China. Kathie Lee handbags were made for Wal-Mart in China by workers forced to work 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, with one day off a month, for an average wage of three cents an hour. They were housed 16 to a small dorm room and fed two dismal company meals a day. It is unlikely that this factory is completely unique. But the North American companies continue to hide their production locations across China, refusing to even release to the American people the names and addresses of the factories they use in China to make the goods we purchase.