Title: Income inequality - Reducing inequality | Britannica
Headings: Reducing inequality
Reducing inequality
How much?
How?
Policies that indirectly reduce income inequality
Policies that directly reduce income inequality
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Content: Philosophers such as John Rawls have argued that, so long as basic human rights are respected, social policies that bring the least advantaged up to a minimum level of income and other social goods should be more acceptable to impartial persons than alternatives that benefit the better off while hurting those who are worse off. Defenders of current levels of income inequality must show that some more-fundamental moral norm, such as a libertarian right to private property, takes precedence over the right to a minimum level of income security and opportunity. Or they must show empirically that any policies designed to reduce inequality will so reduce efficiency and total income that the share for the least advantaged would be smaller than what it is currently. How? Policies to address income inequality can focus narrowly on individual skills, opportunities, and aspirations or may focus more broadly on altering the social, political, and economic structures that create and maintain income inequality. Policies that indirectly reduce income inequality
Income distribution is affected indirectly by patterns of taxation and ownership. Overall economic inequality is affected by policies that provide public goods, such as health care and education, leaving a larger proportion of individuals’ incomes to be spent on other goods. Wealth redistribution through steeper inheritance taxes, promotion of broader ownership (e.g., greater worker ownership), and socialization or redistribution of capital and land equally to all citizens are ways to reduce income inequality indirectly, as they will equalize the unearned income that derives from ownership of wealth. Enforcement of affirmative action and nondiscrimination policies by employers, governments, and educational institutions and policies such as government-subsidized child care that enable people to enter the labour market should also affect income inequality through facilitating greater access to higher-income jobs. Globally, debt forgiveness and reform of trade agreements so that they do more to benefit the least advantaged in each country can reduce income inequality and other forms of inequality, averting a race to the bottom.