Indias Poverty Rate Declines Sharply, 496 Million Lifted Above Poverty Line: World Bank
A recent World Bank report reveals that India has seen a significant decline in poverty, with nearly 500 million people rising above the poverty line since 2011.
New Delhi, October 30 (Daily Kiran) : India has experienced one of the fastest declines in poverty globally over the past decade. According to a World Bank report, approximately 496 million people have risen above the poverty line between 2011 and 2023.
The report highlights that the share of the population living below the lower-middle-income threshold of $4.20 per day (2021 PPP) has decreased dramatically from 57.7% to 16.1%. Furthermore, the percentage of individuals living in extreme poverty, defined as those surviving on less than $3.00 a day, has plummeted from 27.1% to just 2.6%.
Key factors driving this decline include robust consumption growth, increased employment opportunities—especially for women—and the expansion of social transfers, such as food subsidies.
The World Bank anticipates that the trend of decreasing poverty will continue, albeit at a slower pace. It is projected that the share of the population living below the $4.20 daily poverty line will fall from 14.2% in 2026 to 12.1% by 2028.
However, the report also notes that as poverty decreases, it tends to become more concentrated among families with lower educational attainment, fewer assets, limited access to stable job opportunities, and a higher dependency burden. Despite the overall decline, wage inequality remains significant, with the median earnings of the top 10% of earners in 2023 being nearly 13 times greater than those of the bottom 10%.
Additionally, between 2017 and 2023, employment increased by approximately 134 million, nearly double the growth of the working-age population. A significant portion of this increase is attributed to rural women entering the labor force, thereby raising the number of earners per household.
