Inequality soaring, 1% population in India holds 40% wealth, finds study

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, March 20

An international study has pointed to extreme levels of inequality in India compared to international standards which is higher than even during the inter-war colonial period. In 2022-23, 22.6 per cent of the national income went to just the top 1 per cent, the highest level recorded since 1922, concludes a century-long examination of inequality in India by The World Inequality Lab.

The paper titled “Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922-2023: The Rise of the Billionaire Raj” says inequality fell in the post-Independence period, but began rising in the early 1980s, and has skyrocketed since the early 2000s, with the wealth share of top 1 per cent population rising to 40.1 per cent in 2022-23.

‘Extreme disparity, tax super rich’

• Income disparity in India very high in the world, higher than S Africa, Brazil, US
• The number of Indians with net wealth exceeding $1 billion went up from one in 1991 to 162 in 2022
• 10K wealthiest own an average of Rs 2,260 cr wealth, 16,763 times national average
• Study says super tax of 2% on net wealth of 167 wealthiest Indians should be levied

The paper has been authored by Thomas Piketty (writer of “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” that saw him being called a “rock star economist”), Lucas Chancel and Nitin Kumar Bharti.

“In other words, the ‘Billionaire Raj’ headed by India’s modern bourgeoisie is now more unequal than the British Raj headed by the colonialist forces. It is unclear how long such inequality levels can sustain without major social and political upheaval,” notes the paper by the four left-leaning economists.

It quotes data from Forbes billionaire rankings that showed the number of Indians with net wealth exceeding $1 billion rose from just one in 1991 to 162 in 2022. The 10,000 wealthiest individuals in India own an average of Rs 2,260 crore, which is 16,763 times the country’s average. “India’s top 1% income share is among the very highest in the world, higher than even South Africa, Brazil and the US,” it says.

The authors say income and wealth inequality can be kept in check via policy reforms. They favour a super tax on Indian billionaires and multimillionaires along with restructuring of the tax rates to include both income and wealth. A super tax of 2% on the net wealth of the 167 wealthiest Indians in 2022-23 would yield a revenue equal to 0.5% of national income. This extra revenue could finance major investments in education, health and other public infrastructure, they propose.

The paper also examined the distributional consequences of sustained economic growth in India in recent decades when looked at from a historical perspective.

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