The Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it economic reformations amidst the country. Businesses have witnessed a downfall in revenues, while in some cases shut down entirely.
As per a report published by the American think tank Pew Research Center, the economic downfall caused by the coronavirus pandemic has pushed a solid number of about 3.2 crore Indian families out of the middle class status.
The research has concluded that compared to the numbers which could have reached in the absence of Covid-19 pandemic, India has witnessed a deflation of 3.2 crore middle class families, due to the financial woes of the pandemic witnessed last year.
Number of Middle Class Families in India Fall Down
The Washington based Pew Research Centre has published a report on Thursday, as per which the number of Indian middle class families have shrank by 32 million, due to financial woes and job losses in 2020.
As per the report, “The number of Indians in the middle class, or those earning between $10 and $20 a day, shrunk by about 32 million, compared with the number that could have been reached in the absence of a pandemic.”
Due to just one year of economic unrest caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of middle class individuals have fallen to 66 million from a pre-pandemic estimate of 99 million.
China Not Hit as Bad as India
The report also drew a numeral comparison in economic growths between India and the country which found initial traces of Covid-19 virus, China.
The report depicts that between 2011 to 2019, about 5.7 crore people had joined the middle income group in India.
In January last year, the World Bank forecast almost the same level of economic growth for India and China, at 5.8% and 5.9% respectively, in 2020.
However, after 2020, the revised data published by the World Bank depict that this level in India has fallen down by 9.6% and grown 2% for China.
The Pew Centre estimated the number of poor people, with incomes of $2 or less each day, has gone up by 75 million as the recession brought by the virus has clawed back years of progress.
The fall in standards of living in China was modest as numbers in the middle-income category probably decreased by 10 million, while poverty levels remained unchanged, added the report.
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