ones where the benefits of economic growth are widely distributed. And certainly aid should never replace the investments that countries need to make in their own people.
But in some countries, the average income obscures big pockets of extreme poverty. India is a powerful example. In 2011 its average income was more than $1,400 a year, enough to qualify as middle-income. But in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, home to 200 million people, the average was less than a third of that—only $436 a year. In the neighboring state of Bihar, with another 100 million people, it was just $249 a year. That’s about 68 cents a day.
I have visited Bihar, including one trip to a region along the Kosi River, which flows down from the Himalayas. The poverty I saw along the Kosi was heartbreaking. Floods inundate the region during monsoon season, forcing villagers to abandon their homes for months at a time. One community I visited had no electricity or running water, which meant no toilets. Most adults were farm laborers, and their children worked as rag pickers.
Despite its challenges, Bihar is making progress. Vaccination rates are on the way up—the state and the rest of India were declared polio-free in 2014—and plans are now afoot to keep improving the health care system. The roads are better and more children are going to school. Much of the credit goes to the people and leaders of the state, but foreign aid has been an important factor too.
If Bihar were a separate country, it would keep qualifying for that assistance. But because it is part of India, it won’t. Even if India raised more in federal taxes—which already transfer a significant share of wealth to low-income states like Bihar—it would not make up for the lost funding.
It would be a shame if the health workers I met in Kosi couldn’t keep vaccinating children because Indians living in cities hundreds of miles away make a little too much money.
There is another problem with using average income as the main criterion for aid: Income is not an especially good measure of concrete improvements in people’s lives. It doesn’t tell you whether they are living longer, or whether they are more likely to get a good education, find a job, and
