China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has massively overstated income growth for years. In 2025, NBS reported that China's GDP and household income both grew 5.0%. Another obscure data item reported by the Bureau showed that the monthly earnings of employed rural people grew just 2.3%, less than half the growth in GDP. This number, buried in an obscure report on rural migrants, is also overstated and ignores unpaid wages, one of the chief drivers of protests and sabotage in China last year.
Drilling down into China's household income data report to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison shows an even bigger discrepancy. Rural household income from wages grew 6.1% in 2025. That's more than double the 2.3% growth in earnings by rural migrants. (Urban households' wage income grew 4.1%.)
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| China's National Bureau of Statistics. |
The history of monthly earnings from the rural migrant survey shows that growth in wages for rural migrants--who staff the construction sites, factories, hotels, small shops and street stalls, and drive the trucks and taxies--has plateaued since 2021 at a relatively modest level that broke through USD 700 per month in 2025. Monthly earnings were reported at under USD 200 per month in 2008 before China's economy kicked into high gear during 2009-15. Growth slowed after the 2015 crash of China's stock market. Annual growth has been slow apart from a bump in 2021 that probably reflects a change in survey methodology.
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| Calculated from China National Bureau of Statistics and official exchange rate. |
Historic data show a systematic overreporting of growth in rural household wage income versus growth in earnings reported by the rural migrant survey over the past 13 years. The growth reported by the 2 surveys shows similar year-to-year patterns, but growth reported by the income survey exceeded growth reported by the migrant survey by 2-to-5 percentage points every year since 2012. An especially egregious year was 2023--after COVID lockdowns were lifted and the economy began cratering--when income growth was 8.4% and migrant earnings grew only 3.6%.
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| Calculated from wage income reported in rural household income reports and monthly earnings reported in a survey of rural migrants. |
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| Chart shows difference in annual growth rates from the two measures of rural earnings. |
The household income reports have an even more implausible estimate of "business income" (mainly farming) for rural households. According to the 2025 household income report, wages accounted for 42% of rural income, and household businesses accounted for 33.5%. Household income statistics implausibly report that household business income grew consistently every year. This is completely out of step with the realities of farming since agricultural prices for both crops and livestock are cyclical, and yields vary from year to year.
I constructed an estimate of income from major crops for 2008-25 to compare with the business income for rural households data series reported by household income data. The constructed income data comes from farm income and cost accounts reported annually by the National Development and Reform Commission in conjunction with NBS. These data are even more obscure than the migrant survey -- they are not published online -- so they are not massaged by statisticians. I weighted cash income (which excludes imputed expenses for family-owned land and labor) for major crops (rice, wheat, corn, soybeans, oilseeds, and cotton) by area planted nationally and calculated the annual growth in cash income for each year. I applied these income growth rates to the rural business income reported for rural households in 2008 to generate a 2008-25 income series for comparison with official household business income. (I did not include livestock income since the number of households raising livestock has been shrinking fast and is unknown.)
The nearly straight line in official household business income data is implausible, suggesting that earnings from farming grow every year. The income series I constructed from farm income and expense data reflects the actualities of farm income: income grew and declined in sync with super cycles in crop prices. Income peaked in 2012 and 2022 but fell during 2014-16 and 2022-24. (Note: 2025 is estimated based on last year's movements in crop prices and yields.) Over the long term there was no growth in farm income. Nominal cash income from farming in 2025 was a little lower than it had been in 2011. Adding income from livestock would add even more volatility since it is also highly cyclical. (Since last year giant Chinese hog companies have been hoping that low prices would squeeze out even more household-operated hog farms.)
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| Rural business income (mainly farming) from household survey data and growth in cash income estimated from official farm income and expense data. |
There are visible improvements in the Chinese countryside that indicate rising living standards, but the growth reported by official data is implausible. These data don't include modest farming subsidies nor the fortunes made (and lost) by rural families in real estate. There is a skewed distribution of income (acknowledged by the official household income report of median income that is 83.5% of the average last year) since a minority of rural residents have become extraordinarily wealthy through real estate, construction, trading and other business ventures. Income data also ignores debts incurred by households, villages, and various levels of government to finance improvements.
Still, it's clear that China's official rural income data has been severely overstated for at least 13 years, implying an equally exaggerated estimate of GDP growth. Compounding more than a decade of exaggerated growth results in values that are far from reality.
Chinese officials have had strong incentive to pad rural income growth since the early 2000s when there was widespread outrage in China over reports of high taxes and fees, exploitation by rural officials, and widespread rural poverty. Introduction of farming subsidies and waivers of rural taxes and fees were responses to that outrage. Since then, officials have always been careful to point out that growth of rural household income equaled or exceeded urban income growth every year.
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