India's income inequality highest since 1922
In India, the rich have been getting seriously richer, and the poor have been growing significantly poorer. That's the finding of a study of income growth patterns in India since 1922. The report is titled "Indian Income Inequality, 1922-2014: From British Raj to Billionaire Raj?"
The share of national income accruing to the top 1% income earners is now at its highest level since the creation of the Indian Income tax in 1922 during the British colonial rule. The top 1% of earners captured less than 21% of total income in the late 1930s, before dropping to 6% in the early 1980s and rising to 22% today, the paper said.
The study says the share of fiscal income accruing to the top 1 per cent of population shrank substantially from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, from about 13 per cent of fiscal income to less than 5 per cent in the early 1980s. However, after India's economic liberalization when pro-business, market deregulation policies were implemented the situation was reversed, the share of fiscal held of the top 1% doubled from approximately 5 per cent to 10 per cent in 2000.
The revised paper which was released on Tuesday found that the bottom 50% group grew at a substantially lower rate than average growth since the 1980s. Middle 40% grew at a slower rate than the average. On the contrary, top 10% and top 1% grew substantially faster than the average since 1980.
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