India is no longer an abjectly poor nation. But it faces an equally compelling challenge: inequality

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

NITI Aayog released its national Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for 2023. The big takeaway was that between 2015-16 and 2019-21, about 135 million people were lifted out of poverty. A few weeks earlier, PRICE, an independent not-for-profit think tank, released its latest consumer survey.

The report claimed that the country's middle class will balloon from 432 million to 715 million by 2030-31 — an increase of 65.5%. It further projects that if the conducive conditions endure, the middle class will grow to a staggering 1 billion by 2047. Connect the dots and what you have is a profound socioeconomic makeover of India.

From being the home to the largest number of poor in the world, India is emerging as the country with the largest, youthful middle-class cohort. There is an important subtext, though. This emerging cohort of the middle class is not homogenous.

Measured in terms of household incomes, the middle class is stratified. The annual household income of the middle class varies between ₹5 lakh and ₹30 lakh. This intra-middle-class inequality gets amplified when this segment is compared with two other cohorts — destitute (less than ₹1.25 lakh) and wealthy households (more than ₹30 lakh).

According to PRICE, in terms of annual expenditure, middle-class households spend 8 times that of destitute households, while affluent households spend nearly 25 times that of destitute households. So, the good news is that India has turned the corner in its battle against abject poverty. However, it faces an equally compelling public policy challenge: inequality.