the perception of economic inequality

In his Op-Ed contribution "Does rising inequality make us hardhearted?" (NY Times, Dec 10, 2013), Thomas B. Edsall argues that the perception of economic inequality, not the raw data themselves, guide the politicians response. Over the course of American history, support for economic redistribution has been the exception, not the rule. In the 20th century, sup- port for redistributive policies emerged as a dominant force in national politics only in the Depression dec- ade of the 1930s; it was intermittently influential from 1945 to 1965. More recently, a 2008 study of public attitudes during periods of mounting inequality found that "Rather than generating opinion shifts that would make redistributive policies more likely, increased economic inequality produces a conservative response in public sentiment. This conservative shift applies to all income groups, including the poor".

A key tool for that 2008 study is a statistical analysis of the policy mood of the country developed by James Stimson, of the University of North Carolina. Obama argues that government action is required to redress the growing disparity between rich and poor, dimin- ished opportunities for upward mobility and economic stagnation. Public opinion, at least according to the Stimson analysis, is moving in precisely the opposite direction. One of the crucial questions in determining likely support for or opposition to government initia- tives to remediate inequality is whether a voter belie- ves that people are poor because of their own bad choices or thinks that poverty is the result of what pollsters call "circumstances": dangerous neighbor- hoods, inadequate housing, bad schools, discriminat- ion. A Pew survey, conducted in 2012, see the tables on the right (rollover for the second table), produced results that demonstrated the nation’s ambivalence on this question. The more voters blame poverty on a lack of effort by the poor themselves, the more inclined they are to say that there are legions of "undeserving" poor for whom taxpayer-funded govern- ment programs are not warranted. The more a respon- dent blames poverty on external circumstances, the more likely he or she is to support government action to remedy those circumstances.