The paper empirically investigates whether adequate access to irrigation improves the Socioeconomic Status (SES) of poor and marginal rural farmers. The study is based on primary data from a sample of 440 rural farming households located in a saline zone, in the state of West Bengal, India. First, a multidimensional index of SES for each household has been derived, using factor analysis. Then the relationship has been characterized between the SES-index and various independent variables that affect livelihood, including access to irrigation, through quantile regression analysis. Quantile regression results show that while access to irrigation does improve SES, the marginal effects of access differ substantially between low-versus-high income quantiles, and that access to irrigation has larger marginal effects at the lower end of the distribution. The results are useful for targeted irrigation-intervention policy programs.