You thought Rs 22 lakh salary catapults you to top 1% of population? CA explains real math and a delusion

New Delhi: A person earning Rs 22 lakh a year is often portrayed as belonging to the top one percent of the population. But chartered accountant Nitin Kaushik says that real wealth is not about reaching a national percentile but rather about earning money in a thriving and modest region where the salary would serve as a wealth-building engine.

In a recent post in X, Kaushik called the top 1 percent label in India a statistical delusion. He said on paper it appears that someone has won the financial struggle by earning roughly Rs 22 lakh a year and getting placed in the top 1 percent of the country. However, in a Tier-1 city like Mumbai or Bangalore the math is completely different. He said that after a 30 percent tax bracket and a high cost of living that elite income will buy an aggressively middle-class lifestyle.

Kaushik claims that states like Delhi, Goa or Sikkim have such a concentrated density of wealth that Rs 22 lakh hardly seems sufficient. People in these hubs compete with business legacies and high-velocity capital rather than the national average. 

The “Top 1%” label in India is a STATISTICAL delusion that keeps you running on a treadmill ___#IndiaEconomy #PersonalFinance #stockmarketcrash pic.twitter.com/8J7zGrZRBE
— CA Nitin Kaushik (FCA) | LLB (@Finance_Bareek) February 9, 2026

The same Rs 22 lakh income provides comfort and a massive relative advantage in states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh or West Bengal. In these places, you are wealthier than 99 percent of the local population. You have more leverage and are better able to invest and beat local inflation. Kaushik said that the real shift is the death of the national average. The arbitrage opportunity is evident as remote work and digital careers decouple income from geography.

According to Kaushik, a salary of Rs 25 lakh is a survival strategy in an upscale area but that same salary is a wealth-building engine in a thriving and economical region.

Kaushik said that people have been optimizing for the highest possible CTC for decades but have neglected the reality that wealth is not the number on Form 16. Real wealth is the gap between your income and the cost of your environment, he says. A person is measuring success on a broken scale if he is not accounting for regional purchasing power parity, he said.

Kaushik said that true financial freedom is not about reaching a national percentile. It is about realizing that where you earn is just as important as how much you earn. The best course of action going forward is to take a good salary somewhere where it really matters rather than trying to get a larger one in a busy metropolis.