The Elusive Quest for ‘Those Most in Need’
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11228177 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter Travers (corresponding author), Sue Richardson |
| Year | 1995 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 335-349 |
| Publication date | 1995-08-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Australian Journal of Social Issues (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0157-6321 • E-ISSN: 1839-4655 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/j.1839-4655.1995.tb00949.x |
| OpenAlex | W2240818047 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 3 |
It seems plausible to argue that scarce resources such as social security payments should be targeted to those most in need, and that income should play a large role in defining need. Even though some aspects of targeting, such as whether to have tapered means tests or not, are obviously political in nature, it may appear that at least the identification of ‘those most in need’ in terms of income is largely a technical exercise. The argument of this article is that even the measurement of income is only partly a technical exercise. 1 It is also a highly problematic and political one that will always lead to understandable resentment on the part of the ‘nearly poor’, that is, those who are excluded by policy decisions regarding components of the scale by which income is assessed. We illustrate this with an example of a hypothetical family payment where those who are classified as ‘poor’ and ‘nearly poor’ on one income‐scale are classified otherwise on a plausible alternative scale. It does not follow that targeting of payments on the basis of income should be abandoned. But it does suggest that all targeting should be recognised for the blunt political instrument that it is, and that its status as a precise technical tool for achieving greater efficiency be regarded with less confidence than is currently fashionable
Actuarial science · Argument (complex analysis · Economics · Identification (biology · Law and economics · Payment · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Public economics · Resentment · Scale (ratio · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies · Finance
| Citations per year | 0.1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2005 - 2005 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |