The socio-economic factors influencing labour migration to Delhi/NCR and the change in household expenditure as a result of migration has been discussed here. The study uses a cross-sectional survey of 384 migrant laborers from development and infrastructure workers in the National Capital Region which was taken using multistage non-probability sampling technique (which included convenience and snowball sampling). The data were collected by using semi-structured questionnaire and analyzed with descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, inter item correlation and analysis of variance using IBM SPSS 25. Economic insecurity became the overpowering story of migration. The most commonly stated reason for migration was employment (86.5%) with “lack of appropriate employment at the point of origin” being the most agreed upon reason, followed by “access to better health care and education” and “improved living standards in urban areas”. The other reasons – “social mobility” and “family financial instability” – had high levels of agreement. Seven items of the socio-economic scale had a high reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.907). A significant change in expenditure was also observed after migration, with 92.4% spending less than ₹5000 per month prior to migration while 71.9% indicated that they spent ₹5,000 to ₹10,000 after migration, and 28.2% indicated expenditure of over ₹10,000 after migration. The results indicate that migration could create workplace livelihood potential and at the same time lead to significantly higher costs of urban living for the migrants. The policy response should thus focus on both creating jobs and protecting wages, entitling workers to social security coverage from one job to another, and assisting them in acquiring financial skills and affordable housing.