meant that the wages earned by urban workers also include these government fiscal transfers. This is in addition to the relatively higher proportions of credit loans the government also provided to the urban SOEs in the same period. Meanwhile, the wages earned by the rural workers came mainly from growth in output only. These urban-biased policies reflect the importance of the urban minority to the government relative to the rural majority. In the period when reforms in urban areas were introduced, the real wages earned by urban workers rose inexorably. Restrictions to rural-urban migration protected the urban workers from competition from the rural workers, which therefore also contributed to rural-urban disparities. According to a report by the World Bank published in 2009, 99% of the poor in China come from rural areas if migrant workers in cities are included in the rural population figures. Excluding migrant workers from the rural population figures indicates that 90% of poverty in China is still rural. Inequality in China does not only occur between rural and urban areas. There exist inequalities within rural areas, and within urban areas themselves. In some rural areas, incomes are comparable to that of urban incomes, while in others, income remains low as development is limited. Rural-urban inequalities do not only refer to income differentials but also include inequalities in areas such as education and health care. Urban poverty in China The structural reforms of China's economy have brought about a widening of the income gap and rising unemployment in cities. The increasing challenge for the Chinese government and social organizations is to address and solve poverty issues in urban areas where people are increasingly being economically and socially marginalized. According to the official estimates, 12 million people were considered as urban poor in 1993, i.e. 3.6 per cent of the total urban population, but by 2006 the figure had jumped to more than 22 million, i.e. 4.1 per cent of the total urban population and these figures are estimated to grow if the government fails to institute any effective measures to circumvent this escalating problem. China's “floating population” has since helped spur rapid development in the country because of the cheap and plentiful labor they can offer. On the flip side, many people who came from the rural areas are not able to find jobs in the cities. This surplus of rural laborers and mass internal migration will