Arguments for income redistribution

Although governments do affect the distribution of resources in numerous ways, this is often a by-product of the other things they are trying to do. It has been long debated whether or not governments should seek explicitly to redistribute income from the rich to the poor and, if so, to what extent. More generosity to the poor, whether through higher benefits or through a more progressive tax system, means a higher tax burden on richer people, with, it is argued, consequent effects on work effort and on other behaviour. The appropriate degree of redistribution has been the subject of an extensive literature on optimal taxes, but economists generally agree that the final determination must be through the political process.

Economists point to a number of arguments favouring explicit as opposed to indirect methods of redistribution. The primary argument is that these would provide a more efficient means of eradicating severe hardship, suffering, or starvation. Left to itself, the market economy creates casualties among those who lack the skills to participate fully or those who have failed to generate sufficient resources to tide them over into old age. Countries have evolved programs for the prevention of severe need, although the definition of an acceptable minimum standard of living is typically more generous in European countries than in, for example, the United States, and this is reflected in the higher share of public expenditure in those countries. In most countries the definition of poverty, as measured by the level to which the state benefit system brings everyone’s income, has moved from being “absolute” (determined by the minimum requirement of food, clothing, and shelter) to a more relative concept, which allows the poor to share in real rises in living standards.

The second argument for redistribution is that overall social welfare is thereby increased. An additional dollar makes more difference to the standard of living of someone earning $100 per week than to that of someone earning $1,000. Even if everyone has income above an agreed minimum level, there is a case for redistribution from the rich to the not-so-rich. The extent to which this should be pursued depends partly on the perceived distortions the redistribution would cause and partly on how much more value the far more numerous not-so-rich can squeeze out of each additional dollar.

Other arguments for redistribution occur where the market fails to allow individuals to redistribute between periods in their own lives. The classic example is that people tend to have their periods of highest expenditure (while bringing up children) at the points of minimum income (early in life). Those families with little or no access to credit markets can do very little about this, which has been used as one argument for redistribution toward those bringing up children. A second argument contends that children convey benefits to society as a whole, so that parents should be rewarded for creating a public good. This argument would, of course, have little strength in countries with serious problems of overpopulation.

A final group of arguments also concerns market failure. If particular areas or occupations have declined and the work force has not adjusted to this decline by moving to other areas or through retraining, then some subsidy to cushion the recessive effects might be considered appropriate. Most countries redistribute from better-off regions to those that have declined, or they allocate funds for specific programs designed to help particular groups.