Promoting equity is now the guiding philosophy

You can’t knock around the world of government policy for very long these days without bumping into the word “equity” — a lot.

It’s a rare announcement that does not include that term — or at least the concept — whether it comes from President Joe Biden, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor Todd Gloria or county Board of Supervisors Chair Nathan Fletcher.

Efforts to eradicate COVID-19, blunt the impact of climate change and even regulate cannabis all are being shaped with an eye toward helping the underserved and redressing past wrongs.

It has become a guiding principle not just in program after program, but as an overall governing philosophy.

Take, for example, the city of San Diego’s new approach toward seeking resources from the state and federal government. Municipal lobbying policy probably isn’t the first place you’d look to find a push for social change, but there it is.

The guidelines say San Diego will support legislation and funding that advances “fairness and empowerment for all people and communities, including marginalized populations.”

This focus has come amid increased exposure to inequities related to race, gender and economic status. It also comes as Democrats have gained control at City Hall, the County Administration Center, Congress and the White House and continue to keep a dominant grip on the state Capitol.

While the word “equality” still comes into play, it has often been supplanted by “equity.” There are various, though similar, descriptions of the distinction in a policy sense. One of the clearest is in an article published on the website Mental Floss:

“Equality has to do with giving everyone the exact same resources, whereas equity involves distributing resources based on the needs of the recipients.”

Perhaps the word’s most familiar use is related to finances — as in building equity. But the first definition in the Merriam-webster Dictionary is simply “justice according to natural law or right.”

On Jan. 20, the day he was inaugurated, Biden issued an executive order aimed at “advancing racial equity and support for underserved communities through the federal government.”

Last Monday, on International Women’s Day, he signed executive orders for gender equity and women’s rights. One of them established the White House Gender Policy Council.

But it is the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill passed by the Democratic Congress and signed by Biden that

takes the most immediate steps toward attacking inequity. The stimulus checks, federal aid to families with children, funding for child care and expanded assistance for health coverage are expected to pull millions of people out of poverty and boost the middle class.

Who benefits the most from the American Rescue Plan greatly contrasts with how the benefits of the Republicans’ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act were apportioned.

Under the new law, lowand moderate-income households (those making $91,000 or less) would receive nearly 70 percent of the tax benefits, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint think tank of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. Among families with children, those low- and middleincome households would get nearly three-quarters of the benefit.

“By contrast, nearly half of the TCJA’S 2018 tax cuts went to households in the top 5 percent of the income distribution (who made about $308,000 that year),” the analysis says.

That shift comes amid increasing attention to the income gap in the United States. Much has been written about how billionaires saw their wealth grow during the pandemic, while huge numbers of people filed for unemployment benefits.

But the income disparity has occurred over decades.

The gap between America’s richest and poorest families more than doubled from 1989 to 2016, according to the Pew Research Center, while middle-class incomes have grown at a slower rate than upper-tier incomes over the past five decades.

Income inequality in the U.S. is the highest of all G-7 nations.

Sixty-one percent of Americans said there is too much economic inequality in the U.S., according to a Pew survey in September 2019. But like most everything else, partisans view it differently. Among Democrats and people leaning Democratic, 78 percent believe there’s too much. Just 41 percent of Republicans and GOP leaners agreed.

Newsom pushed state legislators to include $600 payments to low-income Californians as part of a $7.6 billion recovery package he signed in February. During his State of the State address last week, he talked about addressing longstanding inequities that became more severe during the pandemic.

Democrats, who have run the state for a long time, own a lot of that.

This raises the question of whether Democratic takeovers in San Diego and Washington — if they last — guarantee long-term success in reducing inequities, despite all the money and action of today.

After Democrats gained a majority on the county Board of Supervisors for the first time in decades, they moved quickly in that direction. Supervisors brought back the defunct Human Relations Commission, gave more power to the county’s independent Citizen’s Law Enforcement Review Board and created and Office of Equity and Racial Justice.

Among other things, the board advanced a cannabis policy for unincorporated areas of the county that includes a “social equity program” involving who gets permits. The proposal by Fletcher and Supervisor Nora Vargas pointed out that “a disproportionate number of Black and Brown residents remain in jail for low-level drug offenses as a result of the failed War on Drugs.”

At City Hall, Democrat Gloria replaced termed-out Republican Kevin Faulconer and Democrats expanded their council majority to 8-1. They have moved to establish a new Office of Race and Equity, an Environmental Justice Initiative focused on boosting health in poor areas, and are seeking to pave miles of dirt streets in less-affluent neighborhoods.

The city created a “climate equity fund,” starting with nearly $5 million to build parks, plant trees and increase exercise options in low-income and ethnically diverse communities most affected by climate change, according to David Garrick of The San Diego Uniontribune.

San Diego voters in November agreed to replace the city police review board with a stronger, independent Commission on Police Practices, a change in large part fueled by complaints about police use of force and disproportionate traffic stops of minorities.

Some of these policies have yet to take effect, so it will be a while before there are results to assess.

Whatever the outcome, the local effort to do better by underserved communities quickly has become institutionalized.

Tweet of the Week

Goes to Jeremy Abbate (@Mediajernyc), publisher of Scientific American.

“I asked my mom if she felt any side effects from her second vaccine shot today and she said ‘an acute appreciation for science.’”

michael.smolens @sduniontribune.com