Akshat Shrivastava, founder of Wisdom Hatch and a prominent financial educator, has triggered a wide-ranging conversation about the declining financial security of India’s middle class. In a deeply personal post on LinkedIn, he contrasted the modest but stable lifestyle of middle-class families in the 1990s with the financial anxiety faced by today’s working professionals.
He recalled how his parents, despite limited incomes, could buy land and build a house by their mid-30s—something that seems increasingly out of reach for many today. “We never ate at 5-star restaurants or dreamed of studying abroad, yet we were content. Dinner conversations were about school or politics—not EMIs or debt,” he said.
Shrivastava pointed out that while living costs have surged, salaries for professionals earning between ₹5 lakh and ₹1 crore have grown at a meagre 0.4% CAGR over the past decade. This stagnation, he argued, has created a widening gap between effort and reward.
He also highlighted a shift in financial behaviour, where people are turning to speculative or high-risk platforms like FnO (Futures and Options), Dream11, or even astrology—not purely out of greed, but driven by stress and the need to escape a cycle of stagnation.
A particularly striking observation from Shrivastava was:
“If after working 30 years in an okay job, you can’t own an okay home, you know that things are NOT okay.”
This sentiment resonates with many urban professionals who feel they've done everything "right" but are still unable to achieve the stability their parents enjoyed. It also mirrors a broader macroeconomic trend: India’s household savings have declined sharply, pointing to deeper, structural stress.
Shrivastava’s post underscores the need for a serious reassessment of the economic path forward for the middle class—one that involves not just individual financial planning but also systemic reforms to address wage stagnation, housing affordability, and rising living expenses.
