989 Covid effect: The proportion of the poor rose from 22% in 2019 to 39% in 2020. Even the cream of India’s employees does not feel secure in their jobs. PTI Aunindyo Chakravarty Senior Economic Analyst We have enough evidence to show that the Covid pandemic has left most Indians poorer. Even the recovery that we saw in October last year barely managed to put an average Indian family on a par with where it was two years ago. CMIE’s latest data shows that even in January, when many believed India had defeated the coronavirus, the average household income was below the lowest point of 2019. Pew Research estimates that the number of poor people in India more than doubled last year.