Wealth and Preferences for Redistribution

• In Event: 244 - Regular Session. Nation-State Welfare Policy

Abstract

Although wealth provides a range of important social and economic advantages above and beyond those of income, sociologists have largely neglected wealth in studies of stratification. Yet, despite paying lower effective tax rates than the vast majority of Americans, the wealthiest individuals—“the 1 percent”—exercise disproportionate influence over public policies, including those that affect taxation and redistribution. Meanwhile, non-wealthy citizens, who do not have such influence, would benefit disproportionately from alterations to redistributive social policies.
While income has consistently been shown to be an important predictor of support for such redistributive social policies, with virtually every study of individual-level preferences for redistribution measuring its effects, no study has considered the effects of wealth, which may have as great or greater effects on such preferences. In this study, the relationship between wealth and support for redistributive social policies is examined in cross-national perspective using the 2009 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP data), the first wave of that study to include measures of wealth. Findings demonstrate that wealth is a more important predictor than income of support for redistribution.

Author

• Liza G. Steele, State University of New York-Purchase