RBI survey shows why livelihood issues are in focus in 2024 polls

Close to 72% said income levels have decreased or stayed the same, while 90% said price levels have increased

The findings of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s consumer confidence survey, conducted in March in urban areas, on concerns regarding livelihood are similar to the findings of the CSDS-Lokniti pre-poll survey, published in these pages.

One major conclusion of the CSDS-Lokniti pre-poll survey was that while the NDA has an edge over the Opposition in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections, issues such as inflation, unemployment, and falling income levels are major election issues this time.

In the pre-poll survey, 32% of the respondents chose ‘increasing unemployment’ as the reason for not electing the incumbent government. The other two reasons in the list of top three reasons were ‘price rise’ (cited by 20% of the respondents) and ‘falling income’ (cited by 11% of them). ‘Price rise’ and ‘increasing unemployment’ also featured as the top two ‘least popular initiatives’ of the government.

The RBI’s latest survey, conducted between March 2 and 18th among 6,083 respondents across 19 major cities, shows similar concerns among urban consumers.

Chart 1 | The chart shows the share of respondents in the RBI survey who said employment opportunities have improved and those who said they have worsened compared to a year-ago period. 

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Close to 38% of the respondents said the job outlook has worsened. A similar share said it has improved compared to a year-ago period. The rest said the outlook remained the same (not plotted in the graph).