No country with 28% poverty can claim to be ‘fourth most equal in the world': Congress

The Hindu

8 hours ago

No country that has a poverty rate of 28.1%, as India did in 2022 according to the World Bank, can make a 'justifiable' claim to being one of the most equal societies in the world, the Congress said in a statement on Sunday (July 6, 2025). It urged the government to update the official poverty measure to better reflect the country's economic reality.
As per a report by the World Bank released in April, and highlighted by a Union government press release on July 5, India's consumption-based Gini coefficient of inequality fell to 25.5 in 2022-23 from 28.8 in 2011-12. According to the Centre, this makes India 'the fourth most equal country in the world', behind the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Belarus.
Wage disparity
On Sunday (July 6, 2025), however, the Congress pointed out other aspects of the World Bank's report, which the government press release did not mention — high wage disparity in India, and a possible reason for the fall in consumption inequality.
'Wage disparity in India is high, with the median earnings of the top 10% being 13 times higher than the bottom 10% in 2023-24,' the Congress said in its press statement, citing the same World Bank report from April.
Consumption survey changes
The World Bank report added that 'sampling and data limitations suggest that consumption inequality may be underestimated', a fact that the Congress highlighted.
The World Bank further said that changes in the questionnaire design, survey implementation, and sampling in the 2022-23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey are improvements, but also 'present challenges for making comparisons over time'.
'It is worth recalling that these changes were made after the Government rejected the previous iteration of the survey (conducted in 2017-18) after it showed falling consumption in rural areas,' the Congress said. 'As a lower middle-income country, the appropriate rate to measure poverty in India is that of $3.65/day.'
Using this measure, the World Bank says India's poverty rate stood at 28.1% in 2022.
'Update poverty line'
'No country that has a poverty rate of 28.1% can make a justifiable claim to being one of the most equal societies in the world,' the Congress statement said. 'The report is therefore rather clear: poverty remains concerningly high, and so does inequality.'
Among the Congress' several suggestions to address this issue was for the government to update its official poverty line, something that had not been attempted since the Rangarajan Committee submitted its report in 2014.
'Sharpening inequality is now firmly embedded in the nature of our economic growth and its trajectory fueled by the Modi Govt's policies and the widening gap between the privileged few and the dispossessed many can no longer be denied,' the Congress said.