What We Get Wrong About Demand for Redistribution and How to Get It Right

• In Event: Public Support for Redistribution Revisited

Abstract

The public's reaction to rising inequality has perplexed many: why hasn’t greater wealth and income inequality been offset by growing demand for an egalitarian policy response? Why is the share of individuals who support income redistribution the same today as it was four decades ago? Answering these questions, I argue, requires a new conceptualization and operationalization of “Demand for Redistribution.” As pointed out by Moene and Wallerstein (2001), the common emphasis in the literature on redistributive outcomes obscures important distinctions between at least two types of inequality-reducing policies. One includes policies that directly affect how much people earn as individual market actors. The other includes policies that use pooled resources to cover high-risk individuals irrespective of their past contributions to social insurance. Each type of policies raises distinct fairness concerns: (1) how fair is it for some to make more money than others in the marketplace? (2) how fair is it for some to receive more in social benefits than they pay in taxes? To better understand attitudinal stability and change, we need first to better understand how people answer these questions, i.e. how they reason about the fairness of the status quo.

Author

• Charlotte Cavaille, University of Michigan, Ford School of Public Policy