Government, Poverty Reduction, and Inequality

GOVERNMENT, POVERTY REDUCTION, AND INEQUALITY
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Government, Poverty Reduction, and Inequality
Introduction
Since the 1990s, the world has made great strides in helping to fight and reduce poverty rates. According to Peer (2021), in 1990, close to 36% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. Today, this percentage has reduced to about 9.2% of the world’s population. The change and drop in the percentage have resulted from the national, regional, and global initiatives that have helped drive people out of extreme poverty. While trying to perceive the extent to which poverty continues to ravage society, people often consider material resources. However, poverty transcends many other factors that also help showcase the extent to which poverty continues to become a menace in the world. These other factors include elements like the lack of education, sanitation, healthcare, and even healthcare. Studies to understand and reduce poverty are thus pivotal in helping ensure progress in society. Poverty and inequality are closely related terms, even though they happen to mean different things. Today, as the world is making great strides on different fronts, a significant percentage is left behind. In some parts of the world, women are still being considered inferior to men. In others, race and ethnicity happen to interfere with a people’s progress in life greatly. Other elements of inequality like socioeconomic status and access to technology happen to drive a wedge in the world today as some parts are said to remain a great distance behind while assessing the Sustainable Development goals of 2030 (UN, 4, 2020). The need to help bridge the gap between the various sections of societies in the world is indeed dire. As the UN (2020) indicates, solving inequality and poverty is tied to other factors like migration and the climate crisis. The governments are quite crucial in any move to help drive down poverty and ensure that inequality is also reduced. Provided herein is a discussion of how governments can play an integral role in fighting poverty and reducing inequality in the world through policy development and adoption to help protect the most vulnerable in society and ensure the world progresses at a more balanced rate.
Why Adopt Policies to Address Poverty and Inequality
It is incredibly difficult to separate poverty and inequality. Poverty begets inequality, and inequality, in the end, begets poverty. Therefore, there is a need to develop policies that will help eliminate both elements to help provide a balance in the progress the society makes. First, before delving deeper and discussing the governments’ need to adopt policies to reduce poverty and inequality, there is a need to consider the position of the poor and marginalised in policy-making. According to Claeys (125, 2001), the poor happen to be greatly marginalised when it comes to policy-making. She notes that through social exclusion, the poor happen to face challenges when they seek participation in policy-making. Therefore, in the end, policy-making ends up unequally sidelining the poor while in favour of the ones who are well off. There is a need for governments to engage the poor and drive initiatives that will help reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. However, the above can only happen when the poor are involved in policy-making. In doing so, Claeys (2001) argues that it will be increasingly possible to drive at measures that will not only engage the poor but also drive up public participation.
A policy ought to be holistic in its approach, and this means there is a need to conduct an assessment of the most affected in society. According to Parrott (2008), often, governments err in their approach to eliminate or reduce poverty mainly because of the focus of their efforts. She notes that the introduction of low-income programs often targets “low-income working families modestly below or modestly above the poverty line” (2, 2008). This apparently has been the problem for a majority of governments as many fail to target the most affected portions of the population aptly. Parrott believes that children and families living in conditions she refers to as “deep poverty” (3, 2008) deserve more attention than they have been given. She explains that these families are mainly led by parents who cannot find work consistently throughout the year or are greatly hampered by physical conditions. Therefore, many of them fail to successfully provide for their families for a prolonged period of time. Without a policy to address such disparities, the chances are high that such families will continue having cyclical poverty and inequality problems. A child born in poor conditions is likely to remain in the same situation and quite possibly continue the poverty trend through their offspring. Governments, through policy adoption, should help end such cycles.
Governments have the power and authority to change the prospects of many poor and marginalised individuals in the world today. Because of people’s low incomes, the chances of upward trajectory in wealth creation as well as in enhanced future economic prospects are greatly reduced. However, with government support and the introduction of programs that are directly and solely for the poor, m...