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What Do Americans Think About Inequality? View the document 2 (pdf) Introduction Economic inequality has soared in the United States over the past two decades, but there is little agreement among politicians, scholars, or other observers about whether the American public is concerned about this development. In a view echoed by many, the sociologist Alan Wolfe has commented that "if anything is a truism in American politics, it is that people do not care about income inequality." And yet, during the recent Democratic primaries, Senator John Edwards built a strong presidential bid around the theme of "Two Americas" and talked often of inequality. With major public policy battles underway about how to grow the economy, distribute tax burdens, and create more educational opportunity, it is more vital than ever to understand public attitudes about inequality. Do Americans know that inequality increased over the 1980s and 1990s to levels not seen since before World War II? If so, do they care? And what causes the public to shift its views on inequality? We should be able to quickly look up the answers to these questions in any of the leading surveys of the last couple decades. But with a few isolated exceptions, income inequality has not been a central focus of public opinion researchers. The issue has simply never -- including today -- generated much interest outside a certain segment of the academic and activist communities. The lack of interest in income inequality is not surprising. Racial and gender inequality took center stage for much of the 1960s and 1970s. This focus continued into the 1980s when public policies such as welfare and affirmative action became the source of much conflict and debate. The lack of attention to income and class inequality is also not surprising in the context of American "exceptionalism". Historically, concerns about inequality have been weaker in the United States than elsewhere. And in recent years, without a strong political party, civic association, or union movement devoted to the issue, there has been little to offer those Americans who might be interested in curbing the relatively high and rising levels of inequality in the United States. Moreover, the lack of attention has made the issue seem relatively remote and abstract, which does not make it particularly appealing to survey researchers or conducive to the survey research context. Despite these obstacles, there are a handful of existing survey questions that give us at least some traction on the subject. We focus on the questions that help us determine whether Americans know about rising and high levels of inequality, and whether they care about it or oppose it. In investigating these questions, we also consider whether American views have changed over time. If they have changed, we speculate about the causes of such changes. Given the abstract nature of inequality, our speculations include a consideration of whether the media has played a role in affecting attitudes about inequality. We do not consider questions about what should be done to reduce inequality (e.g., whether it is the government's responsibility to do so). Because concerns about inequality have arisen primarily in response to the steep rise in inequality over the past couple of decades, our analysis focuses on this period, particularly the 1990s. Although the 1990s is the second decade of rising inequality, it is arguably the first decade in which there was widespread agreement and acknowledgement that inequality had increased. Moreover, some measures of inequality began to level off at decade's end (e.g., family income inequality and the gap between the middle and bottom of the wage distribution). This allows us to discern whether American views of inequality were sensitive to such shifts. If Americans were aware of the issue, and were concerned about it, then we would expect their views to moderate as the trend itself moderated in the late 1990s. |
