Doctoral Dissertation Research: Understanding Americans' Thinking about Inequality

University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA

Investigators

Abstract

Growing economic inequality in the U.S. has captured the attention of many Americans. Across political ideologies and income ranges, most Americans are critical of the inequality in income and wealth they see in the U.S., and most Americans want a more equal distribution. However, contrary to long-standing theoretical expectations that would predict a rise in the demand for redistribution in response to increasing wealth and income concentration, recent evidence suggests that support for redistributive policy appears to decrease in response to increasing inequality. This research will make sense of Americans' confusing sentiments about redistributive policy through an in-depth examination of Americans' thinking about the phenomenon of economic inequality. The muddled and dissonant nature of public opinion toward redistributive policies suggests the need for a study using qualitative methods that are uniquely suited to capture and make sense of these kinds of messy but influential sentiments. This research does just that, using in-depth interviews (divided among rich and poor neighborhoods) to probe the complexity of Americans' thinking about economic inequality while providing a powerful cross-time perspective through the creative re-engagement of an influential qualitative study on the topic from the early 1980s (Jennifer Hochschild's What's Fair?). Using a revisit to Hochschild?s site and methods to capitalize on the dramatic economic changes over the past several decades, this project extends her findings in new empirical directions. If, as the evidence suggests, a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with current income distributions, then understanding their desire for change and how it is connected or disconnected from their opinions about solutions is of importance to a broad range of stakeholders, including all of those scholars, policy makers, and citizens who seek to understand inequality and disparity.