How India Pulled 500 Million People Out of Poverty, as Inequality Deepens

India lifted nearly 500 million people out of poverty between 2011 and 2023, according to a new World Bank report. Extreme poverty, measured against a threshold of $3 a day, fell from 27.1 percent to 2.6 percent, while the share living below the $4.20 lower-middle-income poverty line dropped from 57.7 percent to 16.1 percent. The progress contrasts with widening income and wealth inequality since India opened its economy in the early 1990s; inequality in the country remains among the highest in the world.