Post by ck4829 on Dec 15, 2016 16:30:00 GMT
and billionaires are in charge?
Wealthy Americans have long been overrepresented in all branches of the federal government, and in both political parties. The differences in political opinion by social class are not as big as differences between Republicans and Democrats, says Nicholas Carnes, a researcher at Duke University who studies the topic. However, policy preferences do vary substantially by economic class, likely because they stem from people's life experiences.
The most influential research on the topic comes from Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, who compare the policy preferences of the affluent — defined as the top 10 percent — with those who are roughly in the middle of the income distribution.
The opinions of the two groups are broadly similar in some areas — with regard to much of foreign policy, for example. But in other policy areas, the preferences of the wealthy tend to diverge sharply from those in the middle. That’s especially true when it comes to bread-and-butter economic issues like taxes, the minimum wage and social safety nets.
“Things like tax progressivity, deregulation and trade were all consistently different between middle income and affluent Americans. Where we do have some data on the truly wealthy, they are even more free-market oriented and in favor of tax cuts on the well-to-do than the merely affluent,” Gilens said.
Another study carried out by Page and other researchers of people in or near the top 1 percent of wealth holders showed that extremely wealthy Americans were more likely than the population as a whole to support cutting Social Security, food stamps and health care, as well as somewhat more likely to support cutting homeland security, environmental protection and job programs. They were less likely to support labor unions, increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit and providing unemployment benefits.
The survey revealed that only 40 percent of ultra-wealthy respondents said minimum wage should be high enough so that no family with a full-time worker can fall below the poverty line, compared with 78 percent of the general public,
www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/15/what-happens-to-the-working-class-when-millionaires-and-billionaires-are-in-charge/?utm_term=.7e9a8b83a1c1#comments
Wealthy Americans have long been overrepresented in all branches of the federal government, and in both political parties. The differences in political opinion by social class are not as big as differences between Republicans and Democrats, says Nicholas Carnes, a researcher at Duke University who studies the topic. However, policy preferences do vary substantially by economic class, likely because they stem from people's life experiences.
The most influential research on the topic comes from Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, who compare the policy preferences of the affluent — defined as the top 10 percent — with those who are roughly in the middle of the income distribution.
The opinions of the two groups are broadly similar in some areas — with regard to much of foreign policy, for example. But in other policy areas, the preferences of the wealthy tend to diverge sharply from those in the middle. That’s especially true when it comes to bread-and-butter economic issues like taxes, the minimum wage and social safety nets.
“Things like tax progressivity, deregulation and trade were all consistently different between middle income and affluent Americans. Where we do have some data on the truly wealthy, they are even more free-market oriented and in favor of tax cuts on the well-to-do than the merely affluent,” Gilens said.
Another study carried out by Page and other researchers of people in or near the top 1 percent of wealth holders showed that extremely wealthy Americans were more likely than the population as a whole to support cutting Social Security, food stamps and health care, as well as somewhat more likely to support cutting homeland security, environmental protection and job programs. They were less likely to support labor unions, increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit and providing unemployment benefits.
The survey revealed that only 40 percent of ultra-wealthy respondents said minimum wage should be high enough so that no family with a full-time worker can fall below the poverty line, compared with 78 percent of the general public,
www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/15/what-happens-to-the-working-class-when-millionaires-and-billionaires-are-in-charge/?utm_term=.7e9a8b83a1c1#comments