Author: Duane Francis Alwin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Equality
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Author: Everett Carll Ladd
Publisher: A E I Press
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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This text examines information from surveys of public attitudes to assess people's views about the government's role in reducing income differences between the rich and poor.

Author: Mr.Vito Tanzi
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1451858922
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 24

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This paper discusses the fundamental determinants of inequality. These are identified as world or market forces, social norms, ownership of real and human capital, and the role of government. The change in the relative role of these factors in determining inequality during economic development is analyzed.

Author: James R. Kluegel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351328980
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Motivated by the desire to explain how Americans perceive and evaluate inequality and related programs and policies, the authors conducted a national survey of beliefs about social and economic inequality in America. Here they present the results of their research on the structure, determinants, and certain political and personal consequences of these beliefs. The presentations serve two major goals; to describe and explain the central features of Americans' images of inequality. Beliefs About Inequality begins with a focus on people's perceptions of the most basic elements of inequality: the availability of opportunity in society, the causes of economic achievements, and the benefits and costs of equality and inequality. The book's analysis of the public's beliefs on these key issues is based on fundamental theories of social psychology and lays the groundwork for understanding how Americans evaluate inequality-related policies. The authors discuss the ultimate determinants of beliefs and the implications of their findings for social policies related to inequality. They propose that attitudes toward economic inequality and related policy are influenced by three major aspects of the current American social, economic, and political environment: a stable "dominant ideology" about economic inequality; individuals' social and economic status; and specific beliefs and attitudes, often reflecting "social liberalism" shaped by recent political debates and events.

Author: Olivier Blanchard
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262045613
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Leading economists and policymakers consider what economic tools are most effective in reversing the rise in inequality. Economic inequality is the defining issue of our time. In the United States, the wealth share of the top 1% has risen from 25% in the late 1970s to around 40% today. The percentage of children earning more than their parents has fallen from 90% in the 1940s to around 50% today. In Combating Inequality, leading economists, many of them current or former policymakers, bring good news: we have the tools to reverse the rise in inequality. In their discussions, they consider which of these tools are the most effective at doing so.

Author: Michael Orton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781859355930
Category : Equality
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: William W. Franko
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190671017
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Donald Trump's 2016 victory shocked the world, but his appeals to the economic discontent of the white working class should not be so surprising, as stagnant wages for the many have been matched with skyrocketing incomes for the few. Though Trump received high levels of support from the white working class, once in office, the newly elected billionaire president appointed a cabinet with a net worth greater than one-third of American households combined. Furthermore, he pursued traditionally conservative tax, welfare state and regulatory policies, which are likely to make economic disparities worse. Nevertheless, income inequality has grown over the last few decades almost regardless of who is elected to the presidency and congress. There is a growing consensus among scholars that one of the biggest drivers of income inequality in the United States is government activity (or inactivity). Just as the New Deal and Great Society programs played a key role in leveling income distribution from the 1930s through the 1970s, federal policy since then has contributed to expanding inequality. Growing inequality bolsters the resources of the wealthy leading to greater influence over policy, and it contributes to partisan polarization. Both prevent the passage of policy to address inequality, creating a continuous feedback loop of growing inequality. The authors of this book argue that it is therefore misguided to look to the federal government, as citizens have tended to do since the New Deal, to lead on economic policy to "fix" inequality. In fact, they argue that throughout American history, during periods of rapid economic change the federal government has been stymied by the federal institutional design created by the Constitution. The winners of economic change have taken advantage of veto points to prevent change that would address the problems experienced by the losers of major economic change. Even the New Deal, in many ways the model of federal policy activism, was largely borrowed from policies created in the state "laboratories of democracy" in the preceding years and decades. The authors argue that in the current crisis of growing inequality we are seeing a similar dynamic and demonstrate that many states are actively addressing economic inequality. William Franko and Christopher Witko argue that the states that will address inequality are not necessarily those with the greatest objective inequality, but those where citizens are aware of growing inequality, where left-leaning politicians hold power, where unions are strong, and where the presence of direct democracy allow for more majoritarian public policy outcomes. In the empirical chapters Franko and Witko examine how these factors have shaped policies that boosted incomes at the bottom (the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit) and reduce incomes at the top (with top marginal tax rates) between 1987 and 2010. The authors argue that, if history is a guide, increasingly egalitarian policies at the state level will spread to other states and, eventually, to the federal level, setting the stage for a more equitable future.

Author: Spencer Piston
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108690033
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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This book explains a long-standing puzzle in American politics: why so many Americans support downwardly redistributive social welfare programs, when such support seems to fly in the face of standard conceptions of the American public as anti-government, individualistic, and racially prejudiced. Bringing class attitudes into the analysis, Spencer Piston demonstrates through rigorous empirical analysis that sympathy for the poor and resentment of the rich explain American support for downwardly redistributive programs - not only those that benefit the middle class, but also those that explicitly target the poor. The book captures an important and neglected component of citizen attitudes toward a host of major public policies and candidate evaluations. It also explains why government does so little to combat economic inequality; in key instances, political elites downplay class considerations, deactivating sympathy for the poor and resentment of the rich.

Author: Lee Rainwater
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351489844
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1064

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Book Description
This classic volume was originally designed as an introduction to social science perspectives on a broad range of social issues in American society, specifically the complex social problems of the 1960s. Because the volume is structured as a survey, it is neither exhaustive or defi nitive. It does provide a wide range of information about these problems, as well as the many diff erent policy initiatives that were developed to cope with them. Readers can learn a great deal about the common themes, predilections and quandaries that characterized United States responses to the complex problems of the 1960s and the patterns of inequality and injustice prevalent at that time.The essays were selected to cover the range of substantive problematic issues of the period, the social science perspectives that were brought to bear on them, and the range of social science methodologies used. Finally, the selections emphasize the contributions that can be made to understanding social problems by intensive and rigorous social science research.Journalists and popular writers use a common sense approach to their study of social problems, and the results are often imaginative and incisive. Th e tools of social scientists produce information and analyses that contribute far more to our understanding than even the most insightful journalist can achieve. Th e selections in this volume highlight the deeper and more fundamental understanding of social issues that can come from rigorous analysis of government statistics, and from special sample surveys, from in-depth ethnographic studies.

Author: Meghan Condon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022669190X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Economic inequality is at a record high in the United States, but public demand for redistribution is not rising with it. Meghan Condon and Amber Wichowsky show that this paradox and other mysteries about class and US politics can be solved through a focus on social comparison. Powerful currents compete to propel attention up or down—toward the rich or the poor—pulling politics along in the wake. Through an astute blend of experiments, surveys, and descriptions people offer in their own words, The Economic Other reveals that when less-advantaged Americans compare with the rich, they become more accurate about their own status and want more from government. But American society is structured to prevent upward comparison. In an increasingly divided, anxious nation, opportunities to interact with the country’s richest are shrinking, and people prefer to compare to those below to feel secure. Even when comparison with the rich does occur, many lose confidence in their power to effect change. Laying bare how social comparisons drive political attitudes, The Economic Other is an essential look at the stubborn plight of inequality and the measures needed to solve it.