A member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee has proposed at the annual session that public servants' salaries be raised, sparking a heated public debate. Many people believe civil servants' salaries are relatively high while some think they are low compared with other professions. The debate has, in fact, prompted some local officials to post online the relatively low amounts they earn to clear people's misunderstandings.

We cannot determine whether civil servants' income is high or low if we don't use the proper benchmark to measure it. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the per capita disposable income of the above average income group in 2013 was 32,415 yuan ($5,280)-or 2,701 yuan a month-and that of the high-income group was 56,389 yuan-or 4,699 yuan a month.

The salary of He Xiangjiu, the CPPCC member who submitted the proposal, is about 4,000 yuan after tax a month. If we take that to be representative of senior public servants' monthly income, they would be part of the above average income group. But if we use daily expenses to determine public servants' income level, an average monthly income of 4,000 yuan is not that high.