That's laughable. It may be true purely from a global economic perspective where life is measured in dollars, but in quality of life and social terms it's absolutely false.

India's middle class can typically own property and afford servants, and live a life that is far more pleasant than is available to those in poverty in the US.

Poverty is not about who possesses more or less. It has more to do with how much you feel deprived, irrespective of how much you possess.