Social Inequalities: Taxation and Public Policies

Statistics from all sides describe a constant increase in wealth concentration. The Forbes 400 for 2023 even finds such a concentration among a select group, while poverty reaches new categories of citizen. In a liberal economy, it is the job of governments to regularize the distribution of wealth. To do so, they have some instruments included under the heading of public policy. The main one will be taxation, and then the level of public education and public health maintained in the country. We follow the evolution of these public policies in a Canadian province, Quebec, for the period of 1867 to date, to see if the government, by its action, increases or decreases the level of inequalities as reflected by public accounts and other governmental documents.