Even as global inequality was falling, income inequality in India increased during 1990-2019. With the occurrence of Covid-19, the trend of increasing income inequality in the country is expected to not only continue but worsen. Analysing data from the Consumer Pyramids Households Survey, this article shows that inequality has risen sharply during the pandemic, with lower income households having experienced a larger decline in earnings.



Economic growth, as well as the distribution of income, have been severely affected in India by the Covid-19 pandemic. Evidence shows that the long-run decline in global income inequality (weighted for population) since the 1990s has recently been reversed solely due to the economic contraction of India’s national income