World Bank: India's poverty rate to fall to 12.1% by 2028 from 14.2%

India's poverty rate will drop from 14.2% in 2026 to 12.1% by 2028, the World Bank says in its latest Poverty & Equity brief. The bank measures poverty here at $4.20 a day.

The projection builds on a big shift already behind the country. Between 2011 and 2023, the share of Indians living below $4.20 a day fell from 57.7% to 16.1%, according to World Bank estimates. That lifted roughly 496 million people above the line. Extreme poverty, set at $3 a day, fell from 27.1% to 2.6% over the same stretch.

What moved the needle? The bank points to three things: stronger consumption growth, more people in work (especially women), and wider social transfers such as food subsidies. Between 2017 and 2023, employment grew by about 134 million, nearly double the growth of the working-age population. Rural women entering paid work drove much of that, adding earners to households.

The brief also flags who is left behind. As poverty has shrunk, it has clustered among households with less education, fewer assets, shaky access to stable jobs and more dependents. Pay gaps remain wide: in 2023, the median worker in the top 10% earned about 13 times the median worker in the bottom 10%.

Recent labour data adds a note of caution. Participation and employment held steady between the first quarter of FY2026 and the first quarter of FY2027. But youth unemployment climbed from 14.6% to 15.9%, with rural young women hit hardest. Real earnings were largely flat, and job growth leaned toward low-productivity work.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman welcomed the findings on X, noting that the report counts India among the countries with the fastest poverty declines. She credited the government's policy push and promised to focus on productive employment, higher household incomes and better delivery of public services.

For households, the takeaway is simple: fewer families are expected to live on the edge, but better-paying, steadier jobs will decide how far and how fast that progress goes. Source: Times of India.

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