Last updated on: November 01, 2009 5:28 AM
According to the World Bank, 300 million people in China - a number roughly equal to the population of the United States - live on less than a dollar a day.
As China's government works to control record high inflation, the country's poor are struggling to put food on the table. And the recent earthquake, officials say, is likely to fuel even higher inflation because of the damage to the country's agriculture.
Sam Beattie reports from Beijing.