On inclusion

Erin Anderssen's article on the possibility of a Guaranteed Annual Income is definitely worth a read. But it's particularly worth noting how barriers set up to limit access to social programs can prove counterproductive:

Conservative Senator Hugh Segal, one of the more vocal proponents of no-strings-attached aid for the poor, points out that the guaranteed-income program for seniors has greatly reduced poverty, especially among women.

“There's a bias that when given the chance people will be lazy,” he says. “That's not my sense of reality.”

Mr. Segal argues that giving money with no conditions removes the stigma and shame around poverty, allowing people to focus instead on how to improve their lot.

Requiring the poor to prove continually that they are deserving of assistance or threatening to pull help away without notice only discourages the risk-taking and confidence required to get out of poverty.

“It's dehumanizing,” Mr. Segal says. “Think of a mother having to negotiate though Plexiglas for enough money to feed her family.”

Or the mom who goes back to school to improve her prospects and loses her welfare payments because she is not seeking jobs.

It also costs people their privacy. Candace Witkowskyj, a legal advocate for welfare recipients in British Columbia, tells stories of people forced to take pictures of the contents of their drawers to prove that they lived alone or to get a doctor's note to justify a $20 emergency food voucher.

“If you think of the core premise of charity, it is not to treat people as lesser,” Mr. Segal says. “[It] is to give people a leg-up so they can have some measure of independence and can make some of their own choices.”

Of course, there's reason for concern about Segal's framing of the issue as one of "charity" rather than the benefits associated with reduced inequality and social exclusion, particularly in the context of traditional rightspeak about "risk-taking" and individual choice which serve more often than not as arguments to eliminate any social support whatsoever. But it's well worth highlighting the fact that efforts to paint social assistance as a black mark on its recipients have serious consequences - and to hold Segal and others to their stated principles in pushing for programs that provide for an adequate income level without being designed to humiliate the poor.