Chief government statistician Dr Paul Cheung added to the gloom of the low paid on Wednesday, warning that the rapidly rebounding economy would not help bridge the divide.

"The indication is that the income spread is likely to widen over time," he told AFP.

"While we will still enjoy a good wage growth, the gap will widen in favour of high income earners."

The statistics department report on wage disparity, focussing on the 1998-99 economic slowdown period, showed that all but the top 10 percent of households suffered an income drop last year.

The bottom 10 percent earned less than 1,000 Singapore dollars (577 dollars per month, with the income of shop sales workers and sales demonstrators plunging 34 percent from 746 Singapore dollars in 1998 to 492 dollars in 1999.

In the same period, the average household income for the top 10 percent rose from 15,053 Singapore dollars to 15,541 Singapore dollers.

Singapore regards 1,000 Singapore dollars a month for a family of four as the poverty line.

Cheung emphasised the incomes cited in the report were statistical averages, and included people who had no fixed income after being laid off.

Nor did the report take into account government measures in the form of tax rebates, and assistance with housing rentals, utilities and service charges when determining monthly income.

"It is not a measure of wealth. People could have been retrenched for a month or two and had savings to draw on before finding work again," he said.

The statistics chief said the findings were not surprising given that wage increases for low paid workers had reduced the disparity between high and low incomes in the years leading up to the recession.

"We have enjoyed a long period of income stablity and income growth has been good for all households. This is more of a temporary sock from the recession," he said.

The trend now would be for all wages to increase, he said, but the inequality gap would widen as the global economy put the high-end income group on international wages.

When the recession hit in 1998, the National Wages Council recommended pay cuts of between five and eight percent, and last year when signs of recovery emerged it called for wage restraint.

With the government forecasting growth of up to 7.5 percent in 2000, the council this week advised a return to wage rises but declined to set a figure saying pay increases should be linked to an employer's ability to pay.