Between 2011 and 2023, extreme poverty in India plummeted from 27.1 percent to 2.6 percent, lifting nearly 500 million people out of destitution. Yet, as this historic economic shift unfolded across the world's most populous nation, the wealth and income gap widened significantly, painting a complex picture of modern development.

According to Al Jazeera, citing a report by the World Bank, India successfully lifted nearly 500 million people out of poverty over a 12-year period. The World Bank noted that extreme poverty is defined as the minimum amount of money needed to afford basic essentials such as food, water, shelter, and clothing, based on an extreme poverty threshold of $3 a day.

Al Jazeera reported that the only other parallel in poverty reduction on this scale is China, which lifted more than 800 million people out of extreme poverty over a period of 40 years. Estimating poverty metrics based on three official household surveys, the World Bank stated that an estimated 496 million people were lifted out of poverty as the share of India's population living below the lower middle-income poverty threshold of $4.20 a day fell from 57.7 percent to 16.1 percent.

Al Jazeera reported that this progress was mainly driven by strong consumption growth, rising employment—especially among women—and expanded social transfers, including food subsidies. The World Bank used Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation, an Indian government body, to determine these rates.

Background

According to Al Jazeera, India's extreme poverty decline represents one of the fastest poverty drops in the world, lauded as remarkable progress by the World Bank. Despite this substantial fall in poverty in the nation of 1.4 billion people, income and wealth inequality has widened significantly since the country opened up its economy in the early 1990s. Citing the 2026 World Inequality Report, Al Jazeera noted that inequality in India remains among the highest in the world.

Why it matters

For observers across the region, large-scale economic shifts in neighbouring nations highlight the complex relationship between rapid developmental growth and widening wealth disparities. Understanding how large populations transition out of extreme poverty while inequality persists offers relevant economic insights for developing economies navigating similar growth trajectories.

What's next

According to Al Jazeera, citing authors of the report led by World Bank South Asia poverty economist Ayago Wambile, poverty in India is projected to continue declining, albeit more gradually. The poverty rate at the $4.20-a-day line is expected to fall from 14.2 percent in 2026 to 12.1 percent by 2028.