समाचार Samāchār · India · 31 October 2026

World Bank: extreme poverty in India fell to 2.6% by 2023. Jobs grew, wages did not

The October 2026 Poverty and Equity Brief estimates about 496 million people left poverty between 2011 and 2023. It also finds flat real earnings and youth unemployment rising to 15.9%.

India has done one of the hardest things a country can do, and at scale. The World Bank’s October 2026 Poverty and Equity Brief says extreme poverty fell from 27.1% in 2011 to 2.6% in 2023. It estimates that about 496 million people left poverty over that period. The Bank calls it one of the fastest poverty declines in the world.

The higher bar moves the same way. The share of Indians below the lower-middle-income line of $4.20 a day, at 2021 prices, fell from 57.7% to 16.1%. The Bank projects 14.2% in 2026 and 12.1% by 2028. It names three drivers. Strong consumption growth. More employment, especially among women. Wider social transfers, including food subsidies. This is a विजय Vijay shared across twelve years, many governments, every state and millions of households.

The brief is just as clear on what is unfinished. Employment rose by about 134 million between 2017 and 2023, nearly twice the growth in the working-age population. Much of it came from rural women entering paid work. Real earnings stayed broadly flat. Much of the new work is low-productivity. Youth unemployment rose from 14.6% to 15.9% between the first quarters of FY26 and FY27, with rural young women hit hardest. About 57% of India’s remaining poor live in one contiguous belt from Uttar Pradesh to West Bengal.

The Bank adds its own caveats. Projections rest on microsimulations and may change. Some recent gains may reflect changes in how consumption is measured. Its priority is productive jobs in the high-poverty states. That is the right next problem. Moving people out of hunger was the floor. Raising what an hour of work earns is the climb. It needs factories and service hubs that make for the world, placed where the workers are, with wages that rise with output.

What a founder takes from it: The first climb is done. The next one is wages that rise with productivity. The work, and the people ready for it, sit in the belt from Uttar Pradesh to West Bengal. That is where builders of factories, warehouses and service hubs should be looking.