Further to this earlier post the number of Indians in the middle class or middle income, those earning between $10 and $20 a day, shrank by about 32 million, compared with the number that could have been reached in the absence of a pandemic.
A year into the pandemic, the numbers of those in the ‘middle class’ has shrunk to 66 million, down a third from a pre-pandemic estimate of 99 million, it added.
“India is estimated to have seen a greater decrease in the middle class and a much sharper rise in poverty than China in the COVID-19 downturn,” the Pew Research Centre said.
Pew estimated the number of poor people, with incomes of $2 or less each day, has gone up by 75 million as the recession brought by the virus clawed back years of progress. A rise of nearly 10 percent in domestic fuel prices this year, job losses and salary cuts have further hurt millions of households, forcing many people to seek jobs overseas.