Poverty Financial News

Most financial planners recommend that you delay claiming public pension benefits to maximize your monthly payments, but a new report says lowering the early eligibility age can help one group in particular: workers with lower incomes.

No other nation describes its elite as “creamy layer" because “cream" is enough to convey the idea of a top layer. But this is the least of India’s flaws. A few days ago, India tried to reform an injustice within its social justice programme when a Supreme Court bench said that caste is not a homogenous entity, and that the “creamy layers" of oppressed castes should not be entitled to the same benefits as the poor among them.

As we celebrate Independence Day, let’s look back at the distance we have traversed in 77 years. This was India in 1947: Life expectancy was 32 years. Literacy was 18%.

Andhra Pradesh government is set to initiate the first-ever skill and industry census to gauge the state's labour force profile and create linkages between the unemployed youth and industry. The state-wide census will capture the demography with social and economic details of over 1.6 crore households. The exercise would be first initiated through a pilot project in one mandal (smallest administrative unit) and one educational institution towards the end of September. After the data is collected and cleaned up, the state government will initiate a state-wide census in January 2025. A highly-placed state government source told ET, «The census will take about 12 months. After this, the data will be cleaned and collated.»

assembly elections, the state governments of Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana are readying to launch direct cash transfer schemes for women this month. The practice started with the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh last year and since then, the parties in power have relied on cash handouts to women voters in a bid to stay in power. In Maharashtra, the Eknath Shinde-led government has announced the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin scheme, under which women in the age group of 21-60 years will get ₹1,500 per month. Following the debacle in the Lok Sabha election, the state government has set aside Rs 25,000 crore for the scheme. It has planned to credit the first two instalments for July and August before Raksha Bandhan, which falls on August 19.

India has been significantly increasing its renewable energy capacity in recent years, but when demand for electricity surges, it still goes back to its most trusted source of power

India's per capita net national income (NNI) for 2022-23 stands at Rs 1.7 lakh. Despite this impressive growth, the perceived increase in wealth is not universally experienced due to persistent disparities in wealth distribution. Workforce Struggles “Despite growing towards lower levels of poverty, India is alarmingly moving towards a struggling working class at risk of falling into poverty. The latest joint report of ILO and IHD indicated that between 2012-2022, the average monthly real earnings of regular salaried workers declined by 1 percent each year, pointing towards poor-quality employment,” Chandra Shekhar, Partner, Posterity Consulting said. Consumption Patterns and Inflation As per a TOI report, the consumption pattern of India is similar to that of the US in the 1960s. The share of India’s domestic consumption to GDP was around 60% in 2022. As per the report, the Indian population spent nearly 30 percent of their income on food, followed by transportation, housing, and then on clothing, education, health, etc. In comparison, the US spends nearly 50 percent of their income on services, followed by healthcare, housing, and then food.

India, President of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly Dennis Francis told a global audience in Rome that the country has lifted millions of people out of poverty through digitalisation. Referring to the need to provide a basis to support rapid development, such as through digitalisation, Francis cited and lauded India's example and said: «Take for example the case of India… India has been able to lift 800 million people out of poverty over the last five or six years simply by the use of smartphones.» Francis was delivering a lecture at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations headquartered in Rome on «Accelerating progress towards Zero Hunger for the current and future generations.»

Finance ministers from leading rich and developing nations have agreed to strive toward effectively taxing the super-rich

Since President Joe Biden left the White House race, Vice President Kamala Harris has begun to craft her own narrative around the economy

Narendra Modi called for a zero poverty target while emphasising that states should play an active role in making India a developed nation by 2047. He mooted creation of river grids and an investor-friendly charter to rank states on their ability to attract investments, at the ninth governing council meeting of the Niti Aayog.

Kamala Harris ' economy — a major opportunity as well as a possible risk for the likely Democratic presidential nominee. Shortly after President Joe Biden left the race a week ago, Harris began to craft her own narrative around the economy by putting an emphasis on ending child poverty, promoting labor unions, reducing the costs of health and child care and protecting «dignity» in retirement.

Narendra Modi called for a nationwide investor friendly charter and an index, to be prepared by the NITI Aayog, to rank states on their ability to attract investments.

Finance ministers from leading rich and developing nations are meeting in Rio de Janeiro to discuss a global tax on the super-rich

The political establishment’s failure to fix decades of crisis in Argentina explains the tide of popular rage that vaulted the irascible Javier Milei, a self-declared “anarcho-capitalist,” to the presidency

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the budget promotes "inclusive growth", benefitting all segments of society, and will be a «catalyst» in making India the third-largest economy and a developed nation.

MGNREGS work demand does not directly correlate with increased rural distress at a micro-level and data from Financial Year 2024 shows states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, with relatively lesser poor population, use more funds under the flagship rural employment scheme, according to the Economic Survey. The survey found there is a marked variation in the performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) across states.

The U.S. government says $325 million in federal funds will be available for solar and battery storage installations across Puerto Rico as the U.S. territory struggles with chronic power outages

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has opened a new parliamentary term

Columbia has a unique problem. The Latin American country is in a catch 22-situation. The Government had signed an important agreement with a major rebel group to attain peace and prosperity but now faces another issue pertaining to increasing levels poverty which may have been caused by this agreement. Columbia’s cocaine production was at an all-time high but now this supply remains unsold resulting in large scale poverty of the farmers who were cultivating this drug. There has been a dramatic downturn in the drug market which has added to the reduced sales of this drug resulting in economic hardships for the people.

This is part of a special series of articles by the country's foremost voices, ahead of Union Budget 2024, aiming to draw attention to the critical reforms that can help India in its journey to become a developed nation by 2047. For two decades, India has doubled down on the policy prescription of providing financial ‘last-mile access’ to its rural and poor citizens. Has the effort succeeded? It depends on who you ask. Financial institutions have expanded manifold their credit volumes to poor households in the last decade, and still the business remains so profitable that the sector continues to attract new entrants.