The Gini Coefficient, the flawed metric behind this damaging myth, ignores billions in black wealth, millions of social grants, and one of Africa’s fastest-growing middle classes.

But by European standards, the UK figure is exceptionally high. Sweden has a Gini coefficient of 0.23, Germany 0.283 and in France the figure is 0.327.

Since 2000 the NBS has published a Gini coefficient that focused on rural income and that stood at 0.3897 in 2011. The coefficient measures income distribution on a scale of zero to one.

The Gini coefficient, a 101-year-old statistical tool that can be applied to many different indicators, is among the most widely used measures of income inequality around the world.

“The nationwide survey, which will provide basic data for China’s Gini coefficient calculation, will cover about 140,000 urban and rural households, and the gathering and use of data will ...

"The nationwide survey, which will provide basic data for China's Gini coefficient calculation, will cover about 140,000 urban and rural households, and the gathering and use of data will conform ...

The calculation by the International Institute for Urban Development in Beijing puts China’s Gini coefficient – a widely used measure of inequality – at 0.438 in 2010.

The Gini index, or Gini coefficient, is a summary measure of income inequality representing how income distribution varies compared with an equal outcome. States with the lowest Gini index figures ...