
New Delhi: Household savings hit a record low at 5.2% of the gross national disposable income (GNDI) in FY22-23 while debt rose to an all-time high at 5.7%, the RBI annual report for 2024 shows. GNDI refers to the income available to the nation for final consumption and gross saving.>
The report shows that net financial savings of households have stagnated over the last decade, hovering around 7.5%, except the pandemic year FY20-21 where savings peaked at 11.6%.>
However, in FY21-22, savings saw a sharp drop to 7.2% before falling to an all-time low of 5.2% last year. >
Gross financial savings also hovered around 10-11% over the past decade except the pandemic year FY20-21 where they peaked at 15.6%.>
Lower gross savings means that people are saving less and consuming more, which, in turn, results in less domestic investment.>
According to the RBI report, the savings-investment gap widened in FY22-23. >

Screengrab from RBI report.>
Meanwhile, household debt rose from 3% in FY13-14 to a record high of 5.7% in FY22-23. >
Over the last decade, debt levels hovered around 3-4% except FY15-15 when it hit a low of 2.7%. Compared to FY21-22, when household debt was at 3.8%, the last fiscal year saw a massive jump in household liabilities to 5.7%.>
High debt and low savings have come at a time when the country is seeing large scale unemployment and stagnant wages. >
Unemployment and stagnant wages>
According to the latest ILO report on India’s labour landscape, the proportion of unemployed youth with an education has surged from 54.2% in 2000 to a staggering 65.7% in 2022, Business Insider reported. >
For those with a college degree, the unemployment rate stands at 29.1%, nearly nine times higher than the unemployment rate for illiterate individuals (3.4%), the ILO report said.>
Meanwhile, another ILO report prepared in collaboration with the Institute for Human Development (IHD) showed that the average monthly real earnings of regular salaried workers declined by 1% each year between 2012-22. >
According to the ILO’s calculations based on official government data, the average real monthly wage of a regular wage worker decreased from Rs 12,100 in 2012 to Rs 10,925 in 2022.>
Regular wage or salaried workers are individuals who have relatively long-term employment and are paid on a weekly or monthly basis. This includes government employees, Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers, domestic helpers, guards, and those employed in the private sector.>
The decline in wages was also observed among agricultural workers. From 2014-2024, real wages (wages that have been adjusted for inflation) for agricultural labourers declined by 1.3% every year according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture. The decade before that (2004-2014) was marked by an annual rise of 6.8% in real wages for this sector. >
Those who work in brick kilns, seen as labour intensive and a last resort to gain employment for India’s poorest, too saw a stagnation of wages in the last decade. >