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This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, December 24th, 2019.

I'm Keelug Brown.

Designing a policy for poverty eradication is not the same thing as designing a policy to

end or reduce income inequality. Orfi Devungi is chief economist at the

Illinois Policy Institute. In Colorado Springs earlier this year we spoke about

labor markets, income, and poverty.

I think it's really sad and even a little bit silly

that the focus has gone away from eradicating poverty

to focusing on income inequality.

And I'll give you a very simple example why.

So imagine a society where we cast wide social safety nets,

and so the poor have no incentive or no reason whatsoever

to accumulate capital to accumulate assets right so you'll have you'll end up with a big

gap between the poor and the rich in a society like that, for example, right?

So there's no reason to focus on income inequality. Instead, I think we should be focusing on lifting people out of poverty and getting them up the economic ladder of success.

And there is a thing that does a really good job of, if not eradicating, certainly alleviating the bad parts of poverty and that is having

...