Abstract:

The urban-rural income gap forms in a natural historical process. Narrowing the urban-rural income gap has become an inevitable choice of governing the country. The fundamental way is to follow objective laws to raise the bottom of the gap and trim the top of the gap. While to raise the bottom means to reduce or eliminate absolute poverty, mainly to raise the income level of farmers and eliminate absolute poverty in rural areas, both to raise the bottom and trim the top means to slow down polarization and solidly promote common prosperity. Narrowing the income gap between urban and rural areas is positively related to poverty alleviation and common prosperity. The empirical research shows that the bottom of the absolute income gap between urban and rural areas is gradually rising and meanwhile China is gradually getting rid of absolute poverty, which is consistent with the implementation of the national targeted poverty alleviation strategy (2012-2020). We predict that the relative income gap between urban and rural areas will gradually narrow in the future and this will act as an important path to promote common prosperity on the new journey in the new era.

Key words: urban-rural income gap, targeted poverty alleviation, poverty alleviation, common prosperity