… In her 2013 book, The Undeserving Rich: American Beliefs about Inequality, Opportunity, and Redistribution, sociologist Leslie McCall methodically tries to figure out Americans’ thinking about inequality. She disentangles the way Americans have answered a wide variety of survey questions on the topic over the last quarter-century or so, looking […] Read more »
Poll suggests Dems are missing the mark with swing voters
A new political advocacy group has teamed up with former Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) to argue that the economic inequality agenda of Senate Democrats is a loser with swing voters. … The group, Each American Dream, which has a starter budget of $1 million, has commissioned a poll showing that […] Read more »
Is a ‘national shift toward envy’ underway? Maybe not.
Jay Livingston is a one-man truth squad for Arthur Brooks. Livingston is a professor of sociology at Montclair State University in New Jersey, and Brooks is the president of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and an occasional op-ed writer for the New York Times. … A new example came […] Read more »
The Downside of Inciting Envy
… My own data analysis confirms a strong link between economic envy and unhappiness. In 2008, Gallup asked a large sample of Americans whether they were “angry that others have more than they deserve.” People who strongly disagreed with that statement — who were not envious, in other words — […] Read more »
American dream seen as out of reach
Racing into a new century in which many of the old rules don’t seem to apply anymore, Americans are overwhelmingly pessimistic about their chances of achieving and sustaining the American dream, according to a new Marist-McClatchy Poll. They see an economic system in which they have to work harder than […] Read more »
Majority of Americans want government to reduce income gap
A majority of Americans surveyed believe the government should work to reduce the income gap between rich and the poor, according to a new national poll. A CNN/ORC International survey released Wednesday indicates more than six in 10 Americans strongly or somewhat agree that the government should work to narrow […] Read more »