Bartels study reveals most Americans fail to link economic inequality with public policy

Most Americans support tax cuts not because they are indifferent to economic inequality, but because they fail to connect economic inequality and public policy, according to a new study by Larry Bartels, professor of politics and public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.

Bartels’ study, “Homer Gets a Tax Cut: Inequality and Public Policy in the American Mind,” aims to explore the basis for the surprising support of public tax cuts, with particular emphasis on the relevance or irrelevance of public attitudes about economic inequality. One of the most surprising revelations of the study was that three out of every four people say that the difference in incomes between the rich and poor has increased in the last 20 years, and that this is a bad thing—but most of these people still support President Bush’s tax cuts and the repeal of the estate tax. In addition, the study reveals that people’s opinions about tax cuts are primarily shaped by their attitudes about their own tax burdens.

The data for Bartels’ analysis come from the 2002 National Election Study (NES) survey, in which 1,511 respondents were interviewed by telephone six weeks before the 2002 midterm election, and 1,364 of these respondents (89 percent) were then re-interviewed in the month after the election. In this survey, the respondents answered questions about their perceptions of economic inequality, its causes and consequences, the 2001 Bush tax cut, the proposed repeal of the federal estate tax, and other related issues.

A policy brief is available summarizing the paper and examining the implications of Bartels’ study. The complete paper is also available. (both in PDF format).