3.4.8—Further policies to reduce poverty and inequality

Education, healthcare, minimum wages, labour rights, public services and targeted transfers can address different causes of poverty and inequality.

Long-run supply-side policies may expand opportunity; short-run transfers relieve hardship but need funding and targeting.

Match policy to cause, time horizon and implementation capacity.

Early-childhood education addresses skill gaps more directly than a temporary consumption voucher.

A policy can reduce inequality while missing poverty, or vice versa.

Match policy to cause: human-capital investment and measures reducing unequal opportunity build long-run earning capacity; transfer payments and targeted goods or services give immediate focused support; universal basic income offers broad coverage with high fiscal cost; anti-discrimination rules address exclusion but require enforcement; and a minimum wage raises low pay where employment effects are limited. Compare targeting errors, access, incentives, administration, fiscal cost, time lag and possible labour-market effects.