India's Lower middle class is on the rise: 300m of them join middle class

India's middle class is on the rise. Some 300 million people from the lower middle class have joined their middle class brethren with finding more work and more earnings. The new entrants include those such as panipuri sellers, welders, launderers, cable TV repairers and drivers. This calculation is the result of a study by Bombay University Professor Neeraj Hatekar and his colleagues Kishore More and Sandhya krishna. They say a faster pace of growth and higher intensity of work has brought this about. Lower middle class households do better than others because they bring in their family members to do the same, which is not possible with the poor. In the study, `Lower Middle Class' are the households whose per capita daily consumption expenditure is between $2 and $4 (Rs 134-268) per day. Poor households are those that spend less then $2 per day. Political scientist venkatesh Kumar, Professor at the Mumbai-based Centre for Governance and Public Policy, agrees with the findings of the study. `The social base of the middle class is expanding and it is cutting across caste, occupation, age, gender and geography.' he says.