Reader Response Draft 1

In this article, “China has almost wiped out urban poverty. Now it must tackle inequality”. From this we are able to understand that China, although with reduced poverty is still presented with the problem of inequality within its people. The author Stuart (2015), states that China’s poverty issue has been eradicated gradually due to the Government granting subsidies and employing more workers in the country. However they are still facing inequality problems and the measures taken were not entirely sustainable. She further supported with evidence from the China Household Income Project (CHIP), that the subsidy had raised the income of urban dwellers which lifted more people out of poverty, therefore alleviating the inequality within China (Stuart, 2015). Stuart (2015) also notes that the Government is still facing income imbalance, gender and regional unequal treatment, and pollution which they have yet to overcome. Indeed all these issues are problematic therefore working out a plan could be time consuming and even costly in times of economic downturn. Nonetheless these issues will still remain hence we should focus on more reliable countermeasures such as focusing on the wealthy, offering better funding and rebates, or improving the social policies.

Firstly, China could prevent companies from transferring their financial gains overseas in order to avoid paying income taxes and insist that companies pay equitable taxes (Sanders, 2016). Hence with the additional resources gained from the taxes, the Government could create more working opportunities for people in rural areas. This would therefore improve the balance of income disparities. In addition China’s Government should attempt to narrow the income gap.

According to the article “Is Singapore’s income inequality gap narrowing?”, Holliday (2014) states that lower income families received help from the Singapore’s Government known as ‘Special Transfers’ where the Government gave out utilities rebate that aided in narrowing the income gap. The Government gave out utilities rebates for residents with lower income reducing their financial burden. Furthermore, the co-funding of wages for the workers in Singapore has also helped organizations to give more for their employees. The Government also could create social policies to rebalance China’s economy.

Creating a new policy could resolve an inequality problem but aggravate another. Therefore in order to create equality, in the article, “An introduction to social policy”, Spicker (2006) noted that there are three ways to focus on. Firstly, the equality of treatment, people should be treated as equals without prejudice. Secondly, giving equal opportunity, people should be given an opportunity to venture with what they seek and able to proof themselves on the same ground. Lastly, equality of outcome, regardless of the outcome, the policies should be focusing on solving problems instead of raising concerns on the disadvantages. Hence with these methods, China should be able to make the measures more sustainable.

The ideal outcome comes from the Government as well as the people of the country. Be it the rich or the poor, everyone should be given the same treatment and opportunities to create a better future for their country.