The Congress on Monday accused the Narendra Modi government of manipulating rural wage data to project a sharp rise in earnings, alleging that the apparent surge was the result of a change in methodology rather than genuine income growth.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh claimed that the government had altered the sampling framework used to calculate rural wages, creating an artificial impression of robust wage growth while masking underlying economic weaknesses.
"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.
Drawing parallels with what he described as earlier changes in employment data, Ramesh said the Congress had in 2024 raised concerns over a revised definition of employment adopted through the RBI, which he claimed had been used to project a significant increase in job creation since FY18.
According to Ramesh, reported annual rural wage growth rose from 6 per cent to 17-18 per cent between June 2025 and March 2026, while average daily wages registered a 12.7 per cent jump in a single month.
"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.
He argued that the newly added regions were overrepresented in the sample despite accounting for a small share of the national workforce.
"Despite accounting for only 1.2% of India's workforce, these new data collection points account for 11% of the total sample," Ramesh said.
He further alleged that the inclusion of these regions had skewed wage estimates because workers there typically earn more than those covered under the earlier sample.
"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.
Ramesh contended that a closer examination of the data showed rural wages remained under pressure.
"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.
Taking a swipe at the government, the Congress leader added, "This is the entire political science of data doctoring at play."