The Department of Statistics' Key Household Income Trends 2012 report showed that while the median household income from work has gone up from $7,040 in 2011 to $7,570 last year - a 2.7 per cent increase in real terms, or after accounting for inflation - those whose earnings put them in the bottom 10 percentile have been hit by higher costs. That means real income has actually come down for them.  The data also showed that income for the top 10 per cent of households improved by 12 per cent between 2007 and last year. This figure is lower than the 31.5 per cent recorded for the period 2002 to 2007. SMU Assistant Professor of Law and NMP Eugene Tan said that the income gap, whether widening or not, "is something that bears close watching and action to ensure the income gap does not become divisive".