3 - Income Testing and Social Cohesion

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the income testing program and the social cohesion. In certain cases such as education, redistribution has characteristically taken the form of benefits provided to all, while in income support programs, benefits are means tested. But if the range of government responsibilities were to increase, as is the trend throughout the world, a question arises regarding whether society might not function with less internal conflict if most benefits were not means tested but provided to all. The lack of social cohesion, whether brought about by government policies or by other factors, may arise in either of two ways: the presence of conflict, hostility, and other antagonisms, or the absence of any kind of relationship. Cohesion may imply strong positive bonds between different members and groups in the society, or between the government on the one hand, and the society on the other, that is, just as social cohesion can be lacking either because of conflict or because of mutual indifference, it also can be lacking either because of the absence of cohesion among members and groups or between the government and the governed. In response to the argument that income-tested programs produce stigma, the argument for income-testing would assert that such stigma is valuable and necessary. Stigma is associated principally with redistribution programs in which the condition for which the transfer is being made is regarded as avoidable.