Equity Aspects of Income Security Programs

Abstract

The three-fold objective of all economic and social policy growth, stability and equity is recited so frequently and fervently that it has almost acquired the status of the triune virtues of faith, hope and charity. In this paper, unlike the claim made for charity, we will not propose that the greatest of these three is equity. Rather we will plead that equity should be pursued at least as diligently as the objectives of growth and stability which, in spite of eloquent claims, has not been the case heretofore. We do not believe that equity requires equality of outcome although there are probably a few pure egalitarians remaining who would insist that anything short of complete equality of outcome is forsaking the goal of true equity. Rather, we would fall back on Tawney's definition of equity as '... involving a large measure of economic equality not necessarily in the sense of an identical level of pecuniary incomes, but of equality of environment, of access to education and the means of civilization, of security and independence, and of the social consideration which equality in these matters usually carries with it.' (Tawney, 1973:22) Even by Tawney's more modest definition there is much evidence to show that equity is an underdeveloped value in Canadian society despite all the rhetoric to the contrary. It is clear that the goal of equity cannot be achieved until we are prepared to pursue it more rigorously than we have heretofore. This inevitably will require, by deliberate policy, applying a greater positive bias in our social, economic and fiscal programs in favour of the disadvantaged helping most those who need it most. We believe that before a greater degree of equity can be attained, the guarantee to everyone of a minimum 'command over resources over time,' to use Titmuss' phrase (Titmuss: 1962:chp. 2) should be established as a basic social right. The basic common denominator to achieve this is money income which Dostoevsky quite appropriately referred to as 'coined freedom.' Ideally, that income should be