KEY TRENDS • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...
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Real Wages Declined for Rural Indians in 2022, a Year When the Economy Somewhat Recovered
The year 2022 was supposed to mark the recovery of the Indian economy from the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns of the preceding two years. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February pushed up prices of food, fuel and fertilizer worldwide. In India consumer price inflation, which had declined to under 5 percent in the September-November period of 2021, has steadily increased, staying above 6 percent throughout 2022. What happened to rural incomes in 2022? An...
More »Results of a survey in 4 states reveals how MGNREGA protected the poor from income shocks during the pandemic
-Press release by Azim Premji University dated October 13, 2022 New Delhi & Bangalore, October 13: About 39 percent of all jobcard-holding households interested in working under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 did not get a single day of work in the Covid year of 2020-21. Also, on average, only 36 per cent of households that worked received their wages in 15 days, showed a survey of...
More »Rationale behind raising interest rates -Sashwath Swaminathan nd Anand Srinivasan
-The Hindu A critical facet of the consequences of an interest rate increase is the correction of asset prices. Interest rates act as gravity to stock market prices The Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world have raised interest rates to curb inflation. The rationale behind raising interest rates is that the cost of borrowing rises whenever they are raised, and the incentive to save and invest rather than consume...
More »Low Incomes Haunt India’s Growth -Subodh Varma
-Newsclick.in Three transformative steps could dramatically change this dire situation – provided Modi Govt. has the will to take them. Wage growth of households has declined from 8.2% in 2012-2016 to 5.7% in 2017-2021, according to a fresh study by a ratings agency. It will actually be even lower – around 1% - if inflation is taken into account. This slowing down of wage growth has happened in both rural and urban...
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