As of 2024, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) index score for reducing poverty (SDG 1) ranges between 39 and 92 for Indian states and union territories. Among the states, Tamil Nadu and Telangana were the front-runners with a score of 92 and 91. Among the union territories, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu were the front-runner with a score of 89.

In 2021, over 12 percent of India's population was living on less than 2.15 U.S. dollars per day. When the 3.65 U.S. dollars per day threshold is considered, the share increased to over 44 percent.

In financial year 2023, Uttar Pradesh, India's most populated state had over 32 percent people living under the poverty line of 3.20 U.S. dollars per day. A decade ago the state had over 67 percent of its population living under the threshold. The state of Bihar also witnessed a significant reduction in poverty rates from over 69 percent in the financial year 2012 to over 23 percent in the financial year 2023.

As of 2022, over 13 million children between the ages of 10 to 14 years were affected by poverty. In general, age groups from 0 to 19 years were most impacted by extreme poverty.

In 2022, the total male population living in poverty in India was about 38 million. By contrast, the number of females in poverty during the same time period was around 45 million.

Poverty headcount ratio at $5.50 a day is the percentage of the population living on less than $5.50 a day at 2011 international prices. As a result of revisions in PPP exchange rates, poverty rates for individual countries cannot be compared with poverty rates reported in earlier editions.

As of 2024, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) index score for zero hunger ranges between 84 and 22 for Indian states and union territories. The union territory of Puducherry had the highest score of 84 and among the states, Kerala was the front-runner with a score of 84.

According to the Global Hunger Index 2024, hunger worldwide decreased since 2000, but the pace of the reduction has slowed since 2016. In the Middle East and North Africa, for instance, the hunger index value was the same in 2024 as in 2016, and it had even increased marginally in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2024, Somalia had the highest index score worldwide, meaning it was the country where hunger was most prevalent. The World Hunger Index combines four indicators: undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality.

The estimated per capita income across Sikkim was the highest among Indian states at around 588 thousand Indian rupees in the financial year 2024. Meanwhile, it was the lowest in the northern state of Bihar at over 60 thousand rupees. India’s youngest state, Telangana stood in the fifth place. The country's average per capita income that year was an estimated 184 thousand rupees. What is per capita income? Per capita income is a measure of the average income earned per person in a given area in a certain period. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. If absolute numbers are noted, India’s per capita income doubled from the financial year 2015 to 2023. Wealth inequality However, as per economists, the increase in the per capita income of a country does not always reflect an increase in the income of the entire population. Wealth distribution in India remains highly skewed. The average income hides the disbursal and inequality in a society. Especially in a society like India where the top one percent owned over 40 percent of the total wealth in 2022.

From 2019 to 2021, the share of multidimensional poor in the total population of Delhi sank to 3.43 percent during the NFHS round of 2021 as compared to 4.44 percent from 2015 to 2016. It is expected to further drop to 2.9 percent during 2022 and 2023. The proportion of multidimensionally poor in the population is arrived at by dividing the number of multi-dimensionally poor persons by the total population.

According to the Global Hunger Index 2024, which was adopted by the International Food Policy Research Institute, Somalia was the most affected by hunger and malnutrition, with an index of 44.1. Yemen and Chad followed behind. The World Hunger Index combines three indicators: undernourishment, child underweight, and child mortality. Sub-Saharan Africa most affected The index is dominated by countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the region, more than one fifth of the population is undernourished . In terms of individuals, however, South Asia has the highest number of undernourished people. Globally, there are 735 million people that are considered undernourished or starving. A lack of food is increasing in over 20 countries worldwide. Undernourishment worldwide The term malnutrition includes both undernutrition and overnutrition. Undernutrition occurs when an individual cannot maintain normal bodily functions such as growth, recovering from disease, and both learning and physical work. Some conditions such as diarrhea, malaria, and HIV/AIDS can all have a negative impact on undernutrition. Rural and agricultural communities can be especially susceptible to hunger during certain seasons. The annual hunger gap occurs when a family’s food supply may run out before the next season’s harvest is available and can result in malnutrition. Nevertheless, the prevalence of people worldwide that are undernourished has decreased over the last decades, from 18.7 percent in 1990-92 to 9.2 percent in 2022, but it has slightly increased since the outbreak of COVID-19. According to the Global Hunger Index, the reduction of global hunger has stagnated over the past decade.

Literacy in India has been increasing as more and more people receive a better education, but it is still far from all-encompassing. In 2022, the degree of literacy in India was about 76.32 percent, with the majority of literate Indians being men. It is estimated that the global literacy rate for people aged 15 and above is about 86 percent. How to read a literacy rateIn order to identify potential for intellectual and educational progress, the literacy rate of a country covers the level of education and skills acquired by a country’s inhabitants. Literacy is an important indicator of a country’s economic progress and the standard of living – it shows how many people have access to education. However, the standards to measure literacy cannot be universally applied. Measures to identify and define illiterate and literate inhabitants vary from country to country: In some, illiteracy is equated with no schooling at all, for example. Writings on the wallGlobally speaking, more men are able to read and write than women, and this disparity is also reflected in the literacy rate in India – with scarcity of schools and education in rural areas being one factor, and poverty another. Especially in rural areas, women and girls are often not given proper access to formal education, and even if they are, many drop out. Today, India is already being surpassed in this area by other emerging economies, like Brazil, China, and even by most other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. To catch up, India now has to offer more educational programs to its rural population, not only on how to read and write, but also on traditional gender roles and rights.

The statistic shows the national debt in India from 2019 to 2022 in relation to gross domestic product (GDP), with projections up until 2029. In 2022, the national debt of India amounted to about 81.68 percent of the gross domestic product.

India’s economy on the rise

India is one of the most populous countries in the world, and although a large share of inhabitants are living below the poverty line – or probably due to this fact –, the country’s economy is growing steadily. India’s GDP growth is expected to remain steady at more than 7 percent for the next few years, which is almost double that of the global GDP, and both GDP and GDP per capita are expected to increase significantly.

Almost half of India’s workforce is employed in the agricultural sector, but services and industry share the other half quite equally. India’s GDP is mostly generated by the services sector, which includes transport, retailing, and offering services in the hospitality and tourism industry.

India’s trade balance has been in the red for a decade now, but seems to recover slowly. A trade deficit usually means that a country’s import costs are higher than the amount of money generated with exporting goods. India’s imports could not be compensated for by the country’s exports, as imports have been consistently, even if only slightly, higher over the years both in terms of volume and value.

Still, all signs point to India’s economy growing and thriving, reducing India’s debt (as seen above) and unemployment rate, enabling the inhabitants to create a better life for themselves.

In 2023, India’s real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate was around 8.15 percent, the highest in South Asia. In contrast, Nepal reported the lowest real GDP growth rate in the region at approximately 1.95 percent that year, but it was forecasted to increase by 2.5 times to nearly 4.9 percent in 2025.Economy in South Asia In general, South Asia encompasses Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Bhutan. In 2020, India had a GDP of over 2.6 trillion U.S. dollars, while Bangladesh and Sri Lanka followed. The Maldives and Bhutan were among the countries with the lowest GDP in the Asia-Pacific region. In South Asia, the main economic activities include the services sector as well as the industrial and manufacturing sectors.Society in South AsiaFrom the South Asian countries, Bangladesh had the highest share of people living below the poverty line. The Maldives and Sri Lanka exhibited the highest and second-highest GDP per capita among the South Asian countries in 2021.

The national floor level minimum wage in India in 2024 was 178 Indian rupees per day and has remained consistent for the last few years. The National Floor Level Minimum Wage (NFLMW) is the minimum wage below which no state government can fix. Different states set their minimum wages. The NFLMW was brought into effect in 1996 by the Indian central government. Stagnant minimum wages The Labor Ministry revises the NFLMW every two years, below which states should not fix their minimum wage. The ministry last revised it in 2017. As per economists, the non-revision of the NFLMW hurts the wages of workers engaged in bidi production, plantations, and similar sectors that often employ women. Living wage versus minimum wage India plans to replace its minimum wage system with a living wage by 2025 and has sought assistance from the International Labor Organization (ILO) to develop a framework. The ILO defines a living wage as the wage level necessary to afford a decent standard of living, given a country’s circumstances, whereas the minimum wage is the lowest remuneration required by law to be paid by employers to employees for work performed during a given period. The shift aims to elevate millions out of poverty and to ensure the well-being of unorganized workers.

In 2023, the gross domestic product (GDP) of China amounted to around 17.8 trillion U.S. dollars. In comparison to the GDP of the other BRIC countries India, Russia and Brazil, China came first that year and second in the world GDP ranking. The stagnation of China's GDP in U.S. dollar terms in 2022 and 2023 was mainly due to the appreciation of the U.S. dollar. China's real GDP growth was three percent in 2022 and 5.2 percent in 2023. In 2023, per capita GDP in China reached around 12,600 U.S. dollars. Economic performance in China Gross domestic product (GDP) is a primary economic indicator. It measures the total value of all goods and services produced in an economy over a certain time period. China's economy used to grow quickly in the past, but the growth rate of China’s real GDP gradually slowed down in recent years, and year-on-year GDP growth is forecasted to range at only around four percent in the years after 2023. Since 2010, China has been the world’s second-largest economy, surpassing Japan.China’s emergence in the world’s economy has a lot to do with its status as the ‘world’s factory’. Since 2013, China is the largest export country in the world. Some argue that it is partly due to the undervalued Chinese currency. The Big Mac Index, a simplified and informal way to measure the purchasing power parity between different currencies, indicates that the Chinese currency yuan was roughly undervalued by 31 percent in 2023. GDP development Although the impressive economic development in China has led millions of people out of poverty, China is still not in the league of industrialized countries on the per capita basis. To name one example, the U.S. per capita economic output was more than six times as large as in China in 2023. Meanwhile, the Chinese society faces increased income disparities. The Gini coefficient of China, a widely used indicator of economic inequality, has been larger than 0.45 over the last decade, whereas 0.40 is the warning level for social unrest.

Between 2016 and 2022, there were no deaths reported due to lack of food and water in India. However, in 2012, there were 217 deaths due to this reason, making it the highest fatality number since 2010.

In 1800, the population of the area of modern-day Pakistan was estimated to be just over 13 million. Population growth in the 19th century would be gradual in the region, rising to just 19 million at the turn of the century. In the early 1800s, the British Empire slowly consolidated power in the region, eventually controlling the region of Pakistan from the mid-19th century onwards, as part of the British Raj. From the 1930s on, the population's growth rate would increase as improvements in healthcare (particularly vaccination) and sanitation would lead to lower infant mortality rates and higher life expectancy. Independence In 1947, the Muslim-majority country of Pakistan gained independence from Britain, and split from the Hindu-majority country of India. In the next few years, upwards of ten million people migrated between the two nations, during a period that was blemished by widespread atrocities on both sides. Throughout this time, the region of Bangladesh was also a part Pakistan (as it also had a Muslim majority), known as East Pakistan; internal disputes between the two regions were persistent for over two decades, until 1971, when a short but bloody civil war resulted in Bangladesh's independence. Political disputes between Pakistan and India also created tension in the first few decades of independence, even boiling over into some relatively small-scale conflicts, although there was some economic progress and improvements in quality of life for Pakistan's citizens. The late 20th century was also characterized by several attempts to become democratic, but with intermittent periods of military rule. Between independence and the end of the century, Pakistan's population had grown more than four times in total. Pakistan today Since 2008, Pakistan has been a functioning democracy, with an emerging economy and increasing international prominence. Despite the emergence of a successful middle-class, this is prosperity is not reflected in all areas of the population as almost a quarter still live in poverty, and Pakistan ranks in the bottom 20% of countries according to the Human Development Index. In 2020, Pakistan is thought to have a total population of over 220 million people, making it the fifth-most populous country in the world.

In 2023, just over 55.36 percent of Nepal’s gross domestic product (GDP) came from its service sector. Agriculture contributed the second largest amount, while eleven percent came from the industry sector. The majority of the Nepalese population lives in rural areas, and are depended on agriculture for their livelihood. A struggling but strong population Around 63 percent of Nepal’s 29.6 million inhabitants are part of the workforce, i.e. between 15 to 64 years old. Though the country has a very low unemployment rate (probably due to the fact that agricultural occupations are usually not taken into account when calculating national unemployment) , it is considered a country weighed down by high poverty, with a consistent trade deficit and a volatile inflation rate. However, recent perceptions of children’s living standards when they grow up in Nepal are overwhelmingly of the opinion that the standard of living is better. The Nepalese economy Nepal has robust ties with the country of India, which is both the country’s main export partner, as well as its main import partner . Nepal’s economy has been under the influence of political instability over the course of the country’s history: a monarchy until the early 2000s, it then became a republic with a Maoist-dominated government. Lately, Nepal made several attempts to improve its economic situation, but still relies heavily on remittances and foreign aid.

19 of the 20 countries with the lowest estimated GDP per capita in the world in 2023 are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Burundi is believed to have a GDP per capita of just 326.84 U.S. dollars - for reference, Luxembourg has the highest GDP per capita in the world, at almost 130,000 U.S. dollars, which is around 400 times larger than that of Burundi (U.S. GDP per capita is over 250 times higher than Burundi's). Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa Many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa have been among the most impoverished in the world for over a century, due to lacking nutritional and sanitation infrastructures, persistent conflict, and political instability. These issues are also being exacerbated by climate change, where African nations are some of the most vulnerable in the world, as well as the population boom that will place over the 21st century. Of course, the entire population of Sub-Saharan Africa does not live in poverty, and countries in the southern part of the continent, as well as oil-producing states around the Gulf of Guinea, do have some pockets of significant wealth (especially in urban areas). However, while GDP per capita may be higher in these countries, wealth distribution is often very skewed, and GDP per capita figures are not representative of average living standards across the population. Outside of Africa Yemen is the only country outside of Africa to feature on the list, due to decades of civil war and instability. Yemen lags very far behind some of its neighboring Arab states, some of whom rank among the richest in the world due to their much larger energy sectors. Additionally, the IMF does not make estimates for Afghanistan, which would also likely feature on this list.