Indians are worse off under Modi

Prime Minister Modi should spend less time abroad telling foreigners how well India is doing and more time at home asking people how they feel about his administration.

• Only 3% of Indians consider themselves thriving in 2017 compared to 14% in 2014.
• India’s largely rural population initially led the decline in life evaluations, with thriving dropping from 14% to 7% between 2014 and 2015, and edging even lower to 4% and 3% in the years after that.
• Declines among urban Indians have been much more gradual, although they are down in the past year, dropping from 11% to 4%.
• Modi’s policies have yet to touch the masses. Living wage for family in India remains almost flat in the Rs.17,300-17,400 per month range over his tenure. 
• Wages paid to low-skilled labor decreased to Rs.10,300 per month in 2017 from Rs.13,300 per month in 2014.
• There is the persistence of corruption, the rise of nonperforming loans in state-owned banks, high taxation, poor public health, and chronic income inequality — something that Modi inherited from previous administrations. All these explains the misalignment between the high hopes of the Indian people for their economy and what they are personally experiencing.
• The people had high expectations, and those expectations have not been satisfied. GDP growth is still above 5%, but it has slowed down sharply from past rates of 8 and 9%.
• The above 5% GDP growth is not creating jobs. There’s this phenomenon of ‘jobless growth.’ India is demographically quite a young nation. And the young people are entering the labor force at too fast a rate compared to job creation. These young people are getting frustrated.

When people see their lives headed in the wrong direction, they want change. That should be of great concern to Modi.

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