Poverty & Unemployment

📖 Measuring poverty

India has used various expert committees to define the poverty line over time:

• Tendulkar Committee (2009) — shifted the poverty line methodology to include health and education expenditure, not just calorie intake.
• Rangarajan Committee (2014) — proposed a revised (generally higher) poverty line, though its recommendations were not formally adopted as the official poverty line.

India currently does not have an officially updated poverty line in active use for policy purposes; NITI Aayog now uses a Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which considers health, education, and living standards indicators rather than income alone.

💼 Types of unemployment

• Disguised unemployment — more people are employed in an activity than actually needed (common in Indian agriculture).
• Seasonal unemployment — work is available only during certain seasons (e.g. agricultural labour).
• Structural unemployment — mismatch between workers' skills and available jobs.
• Frictional unemployment — short-term unemployment while transitioning between jobs.

🛠️ Employment schemes

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005, guarantees 100 days of wage employment per year to rural households willing to do unskilled manual work, acting as a major social safety net, especially during agricultural off-seasons or economic shocks.