"Means tested" - different meanings?

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I am not a native speaker, so bear with me. I have recently heard the phrase "means tested" in a context that has no relevance to government assistance or welfare, but more as a term for assessment of criminal / misdemeanor fines.

In many jurisdictions around the world the fines handed out to offenders are set to reflect the individuals income or net worth. One example is speeding or traffic violations or other small misdemeanors.

This was being referred to as "the fines are means tested". I would say the phrase makes sense in this context as well, because just as in the assistance/welfare context, the government assesses / establishes your financial means, just not to estimate whether you are eligible for a certain program, but to estimate how much you have to pay to make sure the fine hurts everyone about the same.

Is this using the phrase in the correct way, or is there a different term for that in the english language? If this is a proper usage, I suggest the article could be expanded to reflect this as an example? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.209.69.173 (talk) 11:31, 1 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

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Proposed merge of Means-tested benefit into Means test

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Means-tested benefit appears to currently cover the subject of benefits using means tests in the United Kingdom. This topic is better covered in Welfare state in the United Kingdom than in a separate article. I'm not convinced that a list of means-tested benefits in the UK is a useful or notable subject. There may not be much here to merge, but Means test is the appropriate redirect target. Daask (talk) 21:09, 25 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

    Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 21:53, 12 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

Article title

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Google Ngram Viewer seems to indicate that "means testing" far exceeds all other possible titles of this page, so I propose a move. Any objections? Daask (talk) 21:12, 25 March 2021 (UTC)Reply