Title: Income inequality - Reducing inequality | Britannica
Headings: Reducing inequality
Reducing inequality
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Policies that indirectly reduce income inequality
Policies that directly reduce income inequality
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Content: 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. Policies that directly reduce income inequality
Income inequality can be reduced directly by decreasing the incomes of the richest or by increasing the incomes of the poorest. Policies focusing on the latter include increasing employment or wages and transferring income. The range of employment-related policies includes strengthening collective-bargaining rights, full-employment schemes, living-wage policies, stronger minimum-wage laws, and wage subsidies. Direct income-transfer policies include traditional means-tested and conditional cash welfare payments. There is also renewed interest in unconditional transfers such as a negative income tax and non-means-tested universal basic income.