Top 1% in India holds higher income share than in US, Brazil and South Africa: Study
The study was published by the World Inequality Lab, where French economist Thomas Piketty is a co-director.
The top 1% of India’s population holds a higher share of the country’s income as compared to the United States, Brazil and South Africa, a World Inequality Lab study published on Tuesday said.
The report said that the rise of top-end inequality in India has been particularly pronounced in terms of wealth concentration between 2014-’15 and 2022-’23.
The study, titled “Income and wealth inequality in India, 1922-2023: The rise of the Billionaire Raj”, was authored by economists Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi.
It said that the top 1% income and wealth shares were at their highest historical levels.
The top 1% of India’s population held 22.6% of the country’s income and 40.1% of wealth in 2022-’23, the report said. The organisation said that the wealth share of the top 1% of India’s population was the highest since 1961, when it began analysing this data.
“The ‘Billionaire Raj’ headed by India’s modern bourgeoisie is now more unequal than the British Raj headed by the colonialist forces,” the authors said. Extreme concentration of incomes and wealth was likely to “facilitate disproportionate influence” on society and government, the study said.
“After largely being a role model among post-colonial nations in this regard, the integrity of various key institutions in India appears to...
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