The Congress on Monday alleged that the Modi government is "doctoring a rural wages boom" and claimed that it has been manufactured by a methodological change.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said that in 2024, his party had flagged that the Modi government through the RBI had changed the definition of employment to show a boom in job creation, claiming the addition of 168 million jobs since FY18.
The leadership of the RBI was later rewarded for its efforts with plum postings in the Modi government, Ramesh alleged.
Now, the Modi government is attempting the same with rural wages, he said on X.
"We have consistently flagged that the root cause of India's economic slowdown is the stagnation in real wages, which has weakened consumption growth and deterred private investment. Unable to fix this original sin, the Modi Government is now 'doctoring' a rural wages boom," Ramesh alleged.
Reported annual rural wage growth jumped from 6% to 17-18% between June 2025 and March 2026, with average daily wages spiking 12.7% in a single month, he pointed out.
"This 'boom' in wages has been manufactured by a methodological change. The Labour Bureau without a press release or website disclosure -- adopted a new sampling framework, which brought in workers from many northeastern states, NCT Delhi, and Goa into the sample pool," he said.
Despite accounting for only 1.2% of India's workforce, these new data collection points account for 11% of the total sample, Ramesh said.
"Most importantly, their average wages run 50-55% above the old sample because newly added regions have far less agricultural employment and more higher-skilled workforces," Ramesh said.
In reality, an analysis of wages data shows that the genuine wage growth would have been around 4.3% per annum, which is the weakest growth in four years, he said.
"This is the entire political science of data doctoring at play," Ramesh said, taking a dig at the government.
