Income is an important indicator for assessing the level of economy development as well as identifying and assessing living standards. The population in Northeast border is poor, facilities are outdated, people’s life is difficult, but it hold great potentials for economic development. However, the region’s biggest challenge today is low living standards and high poverty rate. Differences in income and living standards across regions and strata tend to increase the gap. The sustainability of the trend of income increase and improvement of living standards of the population is not stable. As a result, the development of mountainous areas is dependent on poverty reduction solutions for ethnic minorities through the increase of incomes and improvement of market connectivity for ethnic minorities in mountainous areas.