Income Inequality in India At Record High; 55% of Wealth with Top 10% Indians

The World Income Inequality Report 2018 shows that 55% of India’s wealth is occupied by 10% Indians. On the other hand nearly 30,000 salaried Indians have an earnings of more than a crore per year.

Income Inequality Highest since 1922

The World Inequality Report released for the year 2018 for India specific showed that India is the second country behind Russia where wealth distribution has highest inequality. The report states that 55% of the Indian wealth is occupied by only 10% of the Indians as of 2016.

This figure is highest since 1922 when the Income Tax Act was passed. The 2014 report states that 22% of the total wealth was occupied by 1% of Indians. Since the 1980s when deregulation started, there has been significant rise in rising inequality. The top 0.1% of the people have continued to accumulate more wealth then the bottom 50%.

On the other hand, 30567 people have found to earn more than a crore per year as salary in the year 2015-16. The salary ranges from 1 crore to 500 crore Indian rupees. Only 5 Indians earned between Rs 100 crores to 500 crores while 11 belonged to the club of 50 crores to 100 crores.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes released the data where nearly 29000 people were found to earn between Rs 1 crore to 5 crores. 1228 people belonged to the group of Rs 5 crores and 10 crores earning. People who earned from Rs 10 crores to 25 crore where 346 while only 58 people earned between 25 to 50 crores.

India going towards Capitalism from a Socialist Country

The liberalization of economy was the first step towards capitalism and the present data is the latest proof that India is heading towards a capitalist society. The advantage is the rise in tax collection from income tax while the disadvantage is that rich are becoming richer while poor are getting poorer.

Regulation through socialist regime has proved to be a failure given Russia, the motherland of socialism is on number 1 spot in inequality report where millionaires occupy 62% of country’s wealth.