There is so much talk these days about the importance of reducing income or wealth inequality. But to me, reducing such inequality is at best something of secondary importance. The primary value is helping the poor.
Unfortunately, many people do not even perceive a difference between these values. I regularly see people asked about helping the poor and they respond by talking about income inequality. So it might be useful to review some old truths. While I don't regard the points in this post as terribly original, sometimes it makes sense to repeat old truths, especially when these truths are ignored by so many.
Helping the poor is an important value. People who have low income often do not have access to much of what is valuable in life. Income inequality is far less important. To me, the question is how much income a person has rather than the degree of inequality of the distribution.
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