Extreme heat pushes India's poorest workers deeper into poverty, costing up to 9% of wages

Hundreds of millions of informal workers suffer heat-related illnesses, collapse, and long-term health damage including chronic kidney disease; families face malnutrition and debt from medical costs while unable to afford rest.

Across India's construction sites, fields, and roadsides, hundreds of millions of informal workers are absorbing the physical cost of a climate crisis they did not create. New research from the International Institute for Environment and Development finds that extreme heat stripped outdoor workers of nearly 9% of their annual income in 2024 alone — not as an abstraction, but as lost days, unpaid absences, and bodies pushed past their limits. For the 550 million people who make up India's informal economy, heat is not a weather event but a poverty multiplier, compounding deprivation across gene

Extreme heat pushes India's poorest workers deeper into poverty, costing up to 9% of wages

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