Economic expert Banyong Pongpanich's claim that Thailand's inequality gap is the worst in the world, based on figures from the 2018 Global Wealth Databook by Credit Suisse (CS), has taken social media by storm.
While the media and the public have debated the issue furiously, the government was quick to discredit the CS report as "outdated" and insisted that disparity is a worldwide trend, not just a chronic problem in Thailand.
The CS report compares assets held and controlled by the nation's richest 1% with the other 99%. It concludes that as of this year the top 1% controls 66.9% of the nation's wealth.
Sirinya Wattanasukchai is a columnist, Bangkok Post.
No matter how the government views this national disparity, being poor in this country isn't always bad.
Most Thai governments usually pay some attention to their plight -- immediately before an election, enabling the poor to enjoy tailor-made seasonal gifts.
The current government is no different. Ahead of the Feb 24 general election, it has come up with several benefit packages for poor and underprivileged people.
Earlier this week, a New Year present in the form of 500 baht in cash was deposited into the bank accounts of 11.4 million social welfare cardholders.
The government spent 7.25 billion baht on the New Year gift, a tactic some critics see as an attempt to instil gratitude into underprivileged people's psyche to glean their votes for a pro-regime political party.
Other special offers for the poor include the distribution of mobile phone SIM cards with free internet access "to help improve their earnings and quality of life".
They will also get a waiver on their monthly electric and water bills of up to 230 and 100 baht respectively until September.
It doesn't seem so bad to be the richest or the poorest in this country with the richest well pampered by state policies and the poorest served up with short-lived benefits.
But there are other groups of poor who are usually overlooked -- the lower middle class and the poor in Bangkok.
They are often seen as people who have better access to infrastructure such as electric rail systems than people in the provinces. But in reality, they can barely afford these expensive services.
In the past two decades, the state has invested heavily in new roads, tunnels and the electric rail systems.
A 101-billion-baht investment was approved last year for the Tao Poon-Rat Burana extension of the Purple Line, supposedly to serve half a million passengers a day.
Such a large investment should have been allocated to improve the network of bus services used by the majority of the city's commuters.
If we take a closer look at City Hall's 79-billion-baht budget for the 2019 fiscal year, we can see how it assigns higher priority to the middle and upper middle classes.
About 7.4 billion baht will be spent on building more bridges, roads and "improvements" to existing ones.
Oddly, City Hall plans to spend 45.8 million baht on a passenger boat project along a Bangkok canal, Klong Phadung Krung Kasem, which nobody really uses because of its impractical route, instead of investing in a much-needed alternative along Klong Lat Phrao.
Meanwhile, City Hall never expanded Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), the public transport system which has exclusive road lanes, to other areas such as Ramkhamhaeng, Lat Phrao or Pin Klao even though it proved successful after eight years in operation.
Bangkok bus commuters have been riding old buses, some aged more than 15 years old. Earlier this year, they began using the first fleet of NGV-powered buses -- a Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) project that was approved 12 years ago.
The controversial project took so long to bring the "brand-new" NGV-powered buses to commuters that they are no longer a brand-new technology, with the world's major cities opting for electric buses.
We are not even talking about the 1.6 billion baht misspent on the BMTA's cash-box system installed earlier in its 2,600 buses. The system has never been used, thanks to it not working.
Bangkok's lower middle class have never received one-off cash handouts from the government because they are not poor enough.
These people will have to wait for the next Bangkok governor election and keep their fingers crossed that tailor-made benefits will be offered to them to get their votes.