Are the Rich Getting Richer?
Our wage gap is getting wider and we can prove it.
Lau Chung-ki is worried about the future of Tin Shui Wai. Property developer The Link REIT is ready to open the first phase of an upscale market at the Tin Shing Court public housing estate around Christmas. There will be a “SoHo” area for upmarket food and beverages, and a seafood street with chemical-free freshwater fish. Sounds great, but there’s just one problem. Tin Shui Wai has always been one of Hong Kong’s poorest areas and many of its inhabitants just can’t afford it.
Lau, who works for the Tin Shui Wai Community Alliance, says that the Link is monopolizing options for the public housing estates that accommodate the city’s working poor—the Link owns five of Tin Shui Wai’s six wet markets and this upscale market isn’t a new construction but instead a major expansion of an existing wet market. Unless the government steps in, this gentrification is likely to push up prices for everyone in the area. “The Link’s development is highly focused around a shopping mall,” says Lau. “We’re fighting for more options—like wet markets governed by the Housing Authority.” It might be the only way to keep prices low.
But the problem isn’t only in Tin Shui Wai anymore—Hong Kong is becoming increasingly and more drastically polarized between rich and poor. The wealth gap has long been a problem plaguing the city—and it’s growing larger than ever. As the minimum wage—$32.50 an hour—lags behind inflation, the number of working poor in the city continues to shoot upwards.
In 2014, Hong Kong’s top one percent of earners owned 52.6 percent of the city’s wealth—income, investment and more—up from 35.4 percent in 2000, says Credit Suisse. That’s staggeringly high compared to the developed world: In fact, Hong Kong ranks third-highest in wealth disparity after Turkey and Russia.
How rich are the rich? Just last week, Hong Kong tycoon Joseph Lau Luen-hung, handed a jail term in Macau, set world records when he bought his seven-year-old daughter a $375 million flawless blue diamond ring at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva. A day before that he’d bought a pink diamond at Christie’s for $222 million. And a day later, he sold the Mass Mutual Tower in Wan Chai for a record-breaking $12.5 billion.