Poverty gap widens in S Africa
South Africa has reduced poverty but remains the world's most unequal society, a report said Friday, with analysts warning the yawning gap between whites and blacks threatens social stability.
The Development Indicators report showed that the income of South Africa's poorest 10 percent rose by a third from 783 rand (105 US dollars, 71 euros) in 1993 to 1,041 rand a month in 2008.
The richest 10 percent got richer by nearly 38 percent over the same period.
While the report acknowledges a "racial underpinning" of inequality, figures show that while black South Africans' salaries increased by 38 percent, the incomes of white South Africans jumped by 83.5 percent between 1995 and 2008.
Haroon Bhorat, an economist with the University of Cape Town, said sustained growth up until about 2006 had partially reduced poverty, but at the same time the gap between the rich and the poor had widened.
"Income inequality in the long run is bad for growth. It is a threat to social stability," he told journalists at the report's launch.
While South Africa and Brazil were the world's most unequal societies in the early nineties -- based on the "Gini co-efficient" which measures inequality -- South Africa has now surpassed the south American nation.
While other countries may occasionally come in below South Africa in inequality indices, as a nation with regular and reliable data it was "now singularly the most consistently unequal society in the world.”
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