While public administration scholars argue that core values of social equity are exceedingly important in service provision, less is known of how these values are practised on the frontline in the contemporary public administration. Research points to a dual trend: together with practices aimed at increasing clients’ wellbeing, public service workers’ decisions about allocating public resources are guided by moral perceptions of worthiness, leaving behind the most weakened populations. The current study aims to decipher this duality, analyzing street-level bureaucrats’ decisionmaking about providing personal resources to low-income clients, in order to examine whether the pursuit of social equity is manifested in informal practices. Drawing on indepth qualitative interviews of social service providers in Israel, we found that decisionmaking about personal resource provision is grounded in two distinct sets of values. Alongside a pattern of providing resources to deserving clients, street-level bureaucrats also provide them to clients typically considered undeserving. These latter practices are aimed at decreasing social inequality, demonstrating that social service providers often walk the talk of social equity.

虽然公共行政学者认为社会公平的核心价值观在服务提供中极其重要，但人们对这些价值观如何在当代公共行政的前线实践却知之甚少。研究指出了一个双重趋势：连同旨在提高客户福祉的做法，公共服务工作者关于分配公共资源的决定以对价值的道德观念为指导，留下了最弱势的人群。目前的研究旨在破译这种二元性，分析街头官僚关于提供个人服务的决策为低收入客户提供资源，以检查对社会公平的追求是否体现在非正式实践中。通过对以色列社会服务提供者的深入定性访谈，我们发现有关个人资源提供的决策基于两组不同的价值观。除了向值得的客户提供资源的模式外，街头官僚还向通常被认为不值得的客户提供资源。后一种做法旨在减少社会不平等，表明社会服务提供者经常谈论社会公平。