India's Poverty Paradox

By Stacey Vanek Smith,

Cardiff Garcia

Published February 6, 2019 at 3:33 PM MST

India's finance minister included a radical proposal in his 2019 budget: Give India's poorest farmers a guaranteed income of 6000 rupees a year (about $84). The move is probably largely political: the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and his party have elections coming up and they need rural votes. Still, the payout would significantly increase the income of more than 100 million of India's very poorest families, so a lot of people say the handouts would be a good thing. Today on The Indicator, we look at the pros and cons of payouts.

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Stacey Vanek Smith

Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.

See stories by Stacey Vanek Smith

Cardiff Garcia

Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.

See stories by Cardiff Garcia

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