The Congress of South African Trade Unions has noted with anger that South Africa is now officially the world's most unequal nation. We have overtaken Brazil as the country with the widest gap between rich and poor.
It was reported to Parliament by Haroon Bhorat, University of Cape Town economics professor, that South Africa is now "the most unequal society in the world", with a significant increase in income inequality.
The Gini coefficient index measures the level of income inequality. A value of one indicates complete inequality while a value of zero reflects complete equality. In South Africa it stands at 0.679, up from 0.66 in 2007, although down from a high of 0.685 in 2006.
Generally any Gini coefficient above 0.5 is regarded as high. The figures for other countries with high levels of inequality are Brazil, at 0.57, Bolivia at 0.601 and Botswana at 0.605. But South Africa is the worst of them all.
Brazil is said to have improved its position because of a programme of "upliftment grants to educate children, which are only given on condition that a child is sent to school and attends regularly.