We conducted an Artha Global Conversation with Saurabh Mukherjea and Nandita Rajhansa on their book, Breakpoint: The Crisis of the Middle Class and the Future of Work. They were in conversation with Karan Shah.
The discussion painted a picture of a structural break, most likely accelerated by COVID, that has quietly shattered decades of assumptions about upward mobility in India. Graduate unemployment (29%), shrinking real wages (0.4% CAGR), soaring household debt – and cheap equity capital that makes automation more attractive than hiring – have placed the middle class under a pressure it has rarely faced before.
Yet the breakpoint has the potential to cut in both directions – a capex boom, a potential manufacturing revival, and the quiet rise of AI startups in Tier 2 and 3 cities offer a note of cautious optimism.
