If productivity, the efficiency of the use of labour, in China was the same as it was in the US then Chinese wages would be the same as they are in the US. Running it backwards, we can look at wages in China.

FORBES: Of Course China's Inefficient: That's Why It's Poor

This is a crucial point, for there are good reasons to believe that the growing income inequality in Britain during the past 20 years reflects improvements in the efficiency of the economy, especially the labour market.

ECONOMIST: Poverty and inequality

The last Labour government attempted to release efficiency savings by creating a network of regional fire control rooms.

BBC: MP Chris Leslie warns of fire service privatisation

In the National Health Service, the government has resisted the Old Labour approach of caring only about the volume of spending rather than its efficiency.

ECONOMIST: The long honeymoon | The

Much of what economists know about structural unemployment has been gleaned from the sorry history of continental Europe, where fat benefits and rigid firing rules dulled labour-market efficiency.

ECONOMIST: Joblessness in America