Chinanews, Beijing, July 11 – The latest information shows that Chinese workers' total payroll and average income level both witnessed a double-digit growth for the past four years. With the inflation factors allowed for, such growth rate reached 12%, the highest ever since China kicked off the opening-up. However, according to a survey released by the Beijing Youth Daily Social Investigation Center, 85.4% of the respondents say their income growth rate has not reached the average level. 7.1% of them say their income has even decreased during the past four years.The survey investigated 1,604 people from 29 provinces and municipalities across China.A separate report from the National Statistics Bureau shows that starting from 1999, Chinese workers' average income has always increased at a double-digit rate of 12.9%. So the double-digit income growth rate has lasted for actually 8 years, instead of four years. Judging from these figures, it might be concluded that Chinese workers' income increasing rate has surpassed the GDP growth rate. However, in the same survey, 64.7% of the people claim that their income growth level has not been able to catch up with the average level.When the average income level rises by a large margin, why is it that so many people cannot recognize the high rise?On the one hand, everybody knows that as an average figure, it is quite natural for some people to stand above the level and other people to stay below that average level. On the other hand, however, it should be noted that in this case, the majority of the people (85.4%) think that their income growth has fallen below the average level. From this, one conclusion can only be drawn: even if such figures are true, it only shows that the figures are pushed up by the rising income for only a small number of people. For most of the workers, have not benefited, or benefited very little, from such pay rise.In the survey, 50.6% of the respondents think that the rising figures of the average income are pushed up by a small number of people, especially people working in state-owned enterprises that have a monopoly power in their industries. 41.3% of the respondents say pay rise is attributable to the income increase among senior corporate managers. Only 8.1% of them say that such pay rise is driven by an overwhelming income growth among ordinary workers.Information from the National Statistics Bureau shows that since China kicked off the opening-up, the disposable income of city dwellers increased from 343 yuan in 1978 to 11,759 yuan in 2006. At the same time, farmers’ net income increased from 134 yuan to 3,587 yuan. Allowing for inflation, people's disposable income actually grow by 6.7% year on year. Compared with the high growth rate in macro economy, such growth rate is relatively slow.