India's income inequality at 100-year high; worse than colonial era: Study

The top 1 per cent of Indians hold the maximum national income share at 22.6 per cent compared to key peers

India’s richest people now have a larger share of national income than in more than a century. The top 1 per cent of Indians earns 22.6 per cent of the national income compared to 15 per cent earned by the bottom 50 per cent of the population, according to a study by the World Inequality Lab.

Wealth inequality is also near historic highs and calls for changing tax policies to ensure better redistribution, according to the study entitled ‘Income and Wealth Inequality in India 1992-2023: The Rise of the Billionaire Raj’ by World Inequality Lab authors including New York University’s