Decline in poverty rate: Count of poor people lowers as poverty rate goes from 27% to 5.3%

New Delhi (The Uttam Hindu)- The growth rate in India is continuously increasing. Now the situation has become better than before. A significant reduction in the rate of extreme poverty has been seen in India. According to World Bank data, the extreme poverty rate of 27.1% in 2011-12 has come down to just 5.3% in 2022-23.

The number of people living in extreme poverty has decreased from 344.47 million to 75.24 million. This World Bank report explains the trends of poverty, shared prosperity and inequality in more than 100 developing countries. This information, released twice a year for the spring and annual meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund, presents a picture of poverty and inequality in a country. According to the report, extreme poverty in rural areas decreased from 18.4% in 2011-12 to 2.8% in 2022-23. Extreme poverty in urban areas decreased from 10.7% in 2011-12 to 1.1%. At the same time, the gap between rural and urban poverty decreased from 7.7 percentage points to 1.7 percentage points.

According to the World Bank, India benefited from the reduction of poverty at the lower-middle income level, measured at US$3.65 per day. This broad-based growth has benefited millions of people in both rural and urban areas. Positive trends have been observed in employment growth, especially since 2021-22, with significant improvement in both rural and urban areas, the World Bank report said. Employment growth has outpaced the working-age population since 2021-22, with employment rates rising especially among women. Urban unemployment fell to 6.6 per cent in the first quarter of FY24-25, the lowest since 2017-18.