'Unemployment is the only cause for the prevalent poverty in India' – Comment.

Why unemployment matters, but is not sole

• Open unemployment, especially among the educated youth measured by PLFS, cuts household income directly and is a real driver of urban and graduate poverty.
• Underemployment and disguised unemployment in agriculture keep families poor even when they are counted as workers, so the problem is often low earnings, not zero work.
• Casual and informal work without contracts, seen in construction and petty trade, produces the working poor, which the statement cannot explain.

Other structural causes

• Landlessness, tiny holdings, and rain-fed farming lock rural households into poverty even in years of labour demand, which is why drought and the 2015–16 farm stress years raised deprivation without a unique unemployment spike.
• Health shocks, out-of-pocket hospital costs, and poor sanitation recreate poverty after a wage is earned; NFSA, 2013, and Ayushman Bharat address this layer, not only jobs.
• Caste, gender, and regional gaps in assets and schooling, recorded in NFHS and NSS consumption, mean two workers need not escape poverty equally.
• Inflation in food and rent can push households below a poverty line while employment stays unchanged.

Policy implication of the comment

• MGNREGA, 2005, NRLM, skill missions, and PLFS-based employment targets attack joblessness and underwork.
• Multidimensional Poverty Index work by NITI Aayog counts nutrition, housing, and cooking fuel, which would be redundant if unemployment were the only cause.