Formality does not make it any easier.

"As per IMF 2020 estimates, the informal economy in Europe is estimated at 20% of GDP. In sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America it's 34%. In this context, India's estimate done as of 2018, suggests the size of the informal economy at 52%," wrote Soumya Kanti Ghosh and Deep Narayan Mukherjee. But, they argue that, "India's informal economy currently is no more than 15-20% of the formal economy." "Formalisation of the economy means bringing companies under the regulatory regime of government and subject to laws related to manufacturing and income tax," blog. forumias. Increased GST collections, greater use of digital payment systems and a rise in enrollment in the Employees Provident Fund are signs of formalisation, thinks Ghosh. "The government collected Rs 1.3 lakh crore (Rs 1.3 trillion) from goods and services tax (GST) during October, the second highest since the implementation of the tax in 2017, indicating a strong trend of the ongoing economic recovery in the second half of the financial year," ET. "Gross tax revenue in the first quarter of this fiscal shot up by impressive 33% even over the same period in FY20 (1 April 2019-31 March 2020) (before the pandemic struck). In stark contrast, nominal GDP in the June quarter grew only 2.4% from the pre-pandemic level," FE. "Industry executives in some of the labour-intensive sectors FE spoke to lamented that the formalisation may have been a 'forced' process, driven mostly by the Covid-induced extinction of several unorganised sector entities, rather than an organic one." "Nearly 90% of Indian's workforce is in the informal sector with no minimum wages or any kind of social security," ET. So, "The government is set to do a count of rickshaw pullers, street side vendors and hawkers, and other unorganised workforce, in its first effort to create a national database of an estimate 450 million informal sector workers and provide them with universal social security coverage." "India Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) dropped to 46.3% in Dec 2020, compared to 49.3% in the previous year," CEIC. LFPR "is the sum of all workers who are employed or actively seeking employment divided by the the total noninstitutionalized, civilian working age population," Investopedia. LFPR in the US was "61.4% as of February 2021, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics". "Female labour participation rate in India fell to 16.1% during July-September 2020 quarter, the lowest among major economies, a government report said, reflecting the impact of pandemic and a widening job crisis," Reuters. If an unemployed woman sells her gold ornaments and pays GST to buy shoes and toothpaste for her children, is she in the formal sector? According to the All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS) by the National Statistical Office "80.7% of women in rural areas and 81% in urban areas had deposit accounts in banks," wrote Monami Dasgupta. but "55% of women still don't actively use their PMJDY accounts". According to Angus Deaton, the very poor living on $1.90 per day are much worse off in the US than in rural India or rural Africa, BQ. Perhaps, if the US had a developed informal sector these people would not be worse off. What's the point of making poverty a formality?