One in five rural households benefit from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which provides employment mostly to the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, and women in villages (in my own state, Kerala, 92% of the beneficiaries are women, whose lives have been transformed by their new income). By raising the bargaining power of agricultural labor, the act’s passage has led to higher farm wages, greater purchasing power for the rural poor, and lower distress migration.