IPR Research Notes

"Conservative Egalitarians" —Americans on Inequality

Fall 2008 , Volume 30, Number 2

Benjamin Page

In explaining the absence of "class war” in the United States, many observers argue that most Americans are not aware of economic inequality or don’t care about it, oppose egalitarian government programs, and are unwilling to pay taxes for such programs. Yet political scientists Benjamin Page and Larry Jacobs tell a very different story after conducting a new national survey on attitudes toward inequality.

Their data, combined with an exhaustive review of past surveys, reveal that most Americans consider themselves philosophical conservatives who cherish opportunity, favor individual initiative, and remain skeptical of government. But Americans are also pragmatic liberals, looking to government to enhance equal opportunity and to provide economic security.  ?Additionally, they are willing to pay taxes for egalitarian programs.

Page, Gordon S. Fulcher Professor of Decision Making and an IPR faculty associate at Northwestern, and Jacobs, Walter F. and Joan Mondale Professor for Political Studies at the University of Minnesota, coined the term "conservative egalitarians” to describe the phenomenon.

Most Americans are aware of highly unequal pay across occupations and extreme inequality in the distribution of wealth, and most favor reducing those inequalities. Large majorities support government programs to expand opportunity and security, ensuring that jobs are available to everyone at good wages; providing high-quality education to all from pre-school through college; ensuring that everyone has healthcare; ensuring that seniors have decent retirement pensions; and providing food, clothing, and shelter to the poor.

Not only do most Americans approve of spending precious tax dollars for such purposes, but they are willing to pay more taxes to those ends. Most also prefer progressive tax policies, with heavy taxes on the rich.

These attitudes among citizens, together with the failure so far of policymakers to enact many of the policies they favor, raise questions about the nature of representation and the quality of democracy in the United States. They also suggest that American exceptionalism with respect to social welfare policies might be more of an elite than a mass-level phenomenon.

The book, Class War? What Americans Really Think About Economic Inequality, will be published by the University of Chicago Press in spring 2009.