Overview

• The World Bank's Spring 2025 Poverty & Equity Brief reports that India reduced extreme poverty from 16.2% in 2011-12 to 2.3% in 2022-23, lifting 171 million people out of extreme poverty.
• Lower-middle-income poverty, measured at $3.65/day, also saw a sharp decline, dropping from 61.8% to 28.1% during the same period, benefiting 378 million people.
• Rural extreme poverty decreased from 18.4% to 2.8%, while urban poverty fell from 10.7% to 1.1%, narrowing the rural-urban poverty gap significantly.
• India's five most populous states—Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh—were pivotal in reducing poverty but still house over half of the remaining poor.
• The Congress party has called for tax and welfare reforms, citing persistent inequality and upward revisions in poverty estimates due to updated data methodologies.