Do Americans Care about Inequality?

It's well-known that the United States tolerates a higher level of inequality than other developed nations. Analysts and commentators sometimes say that this is because of some sort of American cultural leaning toward inequality--basically, that we have more inequality because we're generally comfortable with it.

But at the TCF offices this summer, Leslie McCall from Northwestern University talked a little about how this isn't actually true--at least, not entirely. It's true that Americans are more concerned with equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome; it's not so important that everyone have the same amount so long as we all have an equal shot at getting it.

This is not the same thing as saying that Americans don't care about inequality, or that they don't sometimes think that some people have too much. As McCall has pointed out in one of her papers:

Even at their lowest points during the period under study [1987-2000], 58, 49, and 38 percent of Americans strongly agreed or agreed that income differences are too large, that inequality continues to exist because it benefits the rich and powerful, and that inequality is unnecessary for prosperity, respectively. At their peaks in 1992 and 1996, these shares rose to 77, 63, and 58 percent. These are significant increases that remain so after extensive controls for compositional and behavioral shifts.

Just because Americans don't concern themselves with perfect equality, it doesn't mean that they're unconcerned with relative incomes; and just because Americans aren't inclined to engage in class warfare it doesn't mean they don't sometimes feel that the rich are taking them for a ride.

In the video clip below McCall talks a bit further about how important it is to debunk the oft-heard argument that inequality is a non-issue to the American public.