Thursday 7 October 2010
Benefitting all the children equally
In an Irish Times 'Double Vision' piece with Friends First economist Jim Power, TASC Head of Policy Sinéad Pentony argues this morning that the universal provision of public services or other benefits is fundamental to bridging Ireland's equality divide. You can read the full piece here.
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Taxing/means testing child benefit would also have negative effects for women's labour market participation (not really an issue at the moment given how few jobs there are, but in the medium to long term it would have effects).
To me the main benefit of universality is it makes things simple. But it does also have 'incentive' effects, similar in logic to lump sum taxes.
What is worrying about that 'debate' - which Sinead wins hands down- is that Jim Power doesn't even feel obliged to address the facts, let alone provide any analysis. Saloon bar bragging allowed to pass itself off as analysis.
The Tory government has just announced the means-testing of child benefit in Britain- beating their Thatcherite co-thinkers here to the punch.
Here is an article explaining why means-testing hits the poorest most
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/30/means-testing-benefits-hits-poor?commentpage=1
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