When discussing critical public policy issues such as poverty and tax reform, taking a simplistic snapshot view of society is not accurate.
Income distribution offers a clear example of ill-formed policy analysis.
Failure to incorporate Canadians' income mobility into the discussion results is a misleading depiction of reality at best, and, at worst, can end in damaging public policy. Advocates for an interventionist state argue that the distribution of income as it currently stands is unjust. However, this judgement incorrectly assumes that people are fixed in their income stations. Canadian data suggests that our income mobility is fairly dynamic. The Canadian income mobility evidence is even more notable when the analysis is extended to a 5-year period.