Editorial     

Published: June 30, 2025
Updated: June 30, 2025

Can India’s poor eat WB’s ‘equality’ stats?

According to a popular saying, there are three types of lies — Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics! According to the latest Gini Index (Spring 2025) of the World Bank, India, with a Gini Index score of 25.5, has secured the fourth position globally in economic equality. Throughout the world, India ranks just behind the Slovak Republic (24.1), Slovenia (24.3) and Belarus (24.4).

According to the World Bank’s Spring 2025 Poverty and Equity Brief, between 2011 and 2023 about 171 million Indians moved out of extreme poverty. During the same period, India’s poverty rate dropped sharply from 16.2 per cent to just 2.3 per cent, based on the global poverty line of $ 2.15 per day.

The World Bank report and statistics come as a surprise to many, as few will believe that in the case of income equality India is ahead of the US, China, Germany, Japan, France and Switzerland.

Then again, according to property consultant Knight Frank, the number of Indian high net worth individuals — those having assets more than $ 10 million — rose 6 per cent to 85,698 in 2024. No doubt, this growing individual wealth underscores the Indian economy’s resilience and long-term growth potential. The country is witnessing an unprecedented rise in high net worth individuals, driven by entrepreneurial dynamism, global integration and emerging in dustries. This expansion is not just in scale but also in the evolving investment preferences of India’s elite, who are diversifying across asset classes from real estate to global equities.

However, viewed in the context of a huge population of 1,460 million, the number of billionaires (284) and millionaires (1.2 million) is minuscule. The number of middle class, lower income, and poor Indians runs into millions. Where then is the question of income equality?

Again, the World Bank has in its report pointed out that between 2011 and 2023, about 171 million Indians moved out of extreme poverty. During the same period, India’s poverty rate dropped sharply from 16.2 per cent to just 2.3 per cent, based on the global poverty line of $ 2.15 per day. The report also pointed to various government initiatives that have helped drive this transformation. The PM Jan Dhan Yojana has widened financial inclusion with over 550 million bank accounts, and Aadhaar, the national digital ID system, now covers more than 142 crore people, making welfare delivery through direct benefit transfers more efficient.

Contradictorily, even as the World Bank claims that 171 million Indians moved out of extreme poverty between 2011 and 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly claimed that his government has been supplying free food to 800 million poor Indians, with the infer ence that 800 million citizens would have to go to bed hungry everyday if the government did not dole out free rations. What is one to make of these figures — has the Centre brought 171 million poor Indians out of poverty, or thrust 629 million Indians into the vale of poverty?

If the World Bank estimates are close to reality, it should be an occasion of happiness for Indians. But if one moves around in our cities and villages, one can clearly see the signs of widespread poverty. The signs of prosperity – apart from the minuscule numbers of high net worth individuals — are perhaps visible only in government promises and statistics!

In reality, the living conditions of lower middle class, lower income and poor people in India are getting more and more difficult. Rising inflation has totally upset the domestic budget of Indian housewives, unemployment is on the rise, and job creation is a rare development. At the psychological level, an unfortunate fallout of this scenario is that mental depression is on the rise among the large section of educated, but jobless, youth of the country.