Very often when someone mentions the high income inequality in Singapore, more often than not, the PAP leaders will say this is not that important because there is social mobility in Singapore.
So over time you after listening to them you get the impression that social mobility is especially high in Singapore to counter the high income gap.
Nothing is further from the truth. Look at the Gatsby Curve, the vertical axis measures social immobilty and the horizonal axis measure level of inequality....higher on y-axis means lower social mobility.
Singapore actually suffers both high income inequality and low social mobility. Countries like Finland and german y. have far lower inequality and much higher social mobility. This means what the PAP tells is not true, the chance of poor people climbing up to a better life is among lowest in developed countries and our inequality is highest in developed countries. Only counry as comparable to singapore is USA. However, in US the population is divided into rural and urban, lower income folks live in rural areas where the cost of living also much lower...so the effects of inequality is very much reduced. .social mbility is limited by geography if your are in the farmlands you tend to stay tgere...but in Singapore everyone is living within a very small area so the inequality is concentrated and the lack of social mobility more pronounced if the effects of geography is taken out of US data.
In order words , singapore's. third world wage structure has produced the most unequal society in the developed world and this inequality is certain to get worse due to low social mobility
