More Indians are becoming less hopeful about their quality of life as stagnant wages and higher living costs cloud prospects, a survey showed, in disappointing news for Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of this week’s annual budget.

More than 37% of respondents in a pre-budget survey said they expect the overall quality of life for ordinary people to deteriorate over the next year, the highest such percentage since 2013, findings released by polling agency C-Voter showed on Wednesday. Modi has been prime minister since 2014.

C-Voter said it polled 5,269 adults across Indian states for this survey.

Persistent eye-watering food inflation has squeezed Indian household budgets and crimped spending power, and the world’s fifth-largest economy is expected to post its slowest pace of growth in four years. India’s city dwellers are cutting spending on everything from cookies to fast food as persistently high inflation squeezes middle-class budgets, threatening the country’s brisk economic growth.

Nestle India, which makes Kit Kats and other well-known goods, reported its first quarterly revenue drop since the COVID-hit June quarter in 2020.

Indian urban consumption hit a two-year low this month, according to an index published by Citibank that captures indicators such as airline bookings, fuel sales and wages.

Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said inflation had remained unchecked and that prices had gone up since Modi became prime minister, while more than half said the rate of inflation had “adversely” affected their quality of life.

Modi, in the nation’s annual budget this week, is expected to announce measures to shore up faltering economic growth, lift disposable incomes and placate a stretched middle class.

Nearly half of respondents said their income had remained the same over the last year while expenses rose, while nearly two-thirds said rising expenses had become difficult to manage, the survey showed.

Despite world-beating economic growth, India’s job market offers insufficient opportunities for its large youthful population to earn regular wages. India’s growing employment stems largely from self-employed individuals, unpaid workers and temporary farm hires, whose jobs are not equivalent to formal positions with regular wages, private sector economists.

In July 2024, labour department figures showed 20 million new employment opportunities generated each year since 2017/18, countering a Citibank report that said only 8.8 million jobs were added each year since 2012.

According to the Economic Survey released on January 31, 2025, the all-India annual unemployment rate has steadily declined from 6 per cent in 2017-18 to 3.2 per cent in 2023-24. The urban unemployment rate has also dropped from 6.6 per cent in Q2 FY 24 to 6.4 per cent in Q2 FY 25.

In the last budget, India earmarked nearly $24 billion to be spent over five years on various schemes to create jobs but those programmes have not yet been implemented as discussions on the details drag on.

(With inputs from Reuters)