HONG KONG — The Chinese government issued a long-awaited plan on Tuesday to narrow the gulf between rich and poor, offering broad vows to lift the incomes of workers and farmers and choke off corrupt wealth but few specific goals to rein in the nation’s wide inequality.

The proposal was mired for months in an internal dispute about whether to aggressively scale back the rising salaries and benefits of some officials working for state-owned businesses and banks. The document that emerged from the discussions is filled with commitments to deal with that issue and other sources of public concern about the gap between the incomes of residents of dirt-poor villages and those living in privileged urban enclaves.

“There are some stark problems in income distribution that need urgent solving,” said the plan, which was issued on the central government’s Web site. “Chiefly, there remain quite large disparities in urban-rural development and incomes, income allocation is poorly ordered, and there are quite serious problems with invisible and unlawful sources of income.” The plan was drafted by the National Development and Reform Commission and other central agencies.

The income distribution plan was an initiative promised by the departing Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, who leaves office in March. But it also underscores the extent to which the new generation of leaders under Xi Jinping has promised to expand state spending on health care, education and social welfare.