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The Politics Of Income Inequality In The United States
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Book Synopsis The Politics of Income Inequality in the United States by : Nathan J. Kelly
Download or read book The Politics of Income Inequality in the United States written by Nathan J. Kelly and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-30 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using income surveys and various political-economic data, this book shows that income inequality is fundamental to the dynamics of US politics.
Book Synopsis Affluence and Influence by : Martin Gilens
Download or read book Affluence and Influence written by Martin Gilens and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-22 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why policymaking in the United States privileges the rich over the poor Can a country be a democracy if its government only responds to the preferences of the rich? In an ideal democracy, all citizens should have equal influence on government policy—but as this book demonstrates, America's policymakers respond almost exclusively to the preferences of the economically advantaged. Affluence and Influence definitively explores how political inequality in the United States has evolved over the last several decades and how this growing disparity has been shaped by interest groups, parties, and elections. With sharp analysis and an impressive range of data, Martin Gilens looks at thousands of proposed policy changes, and the degree of support for each among poor, middle-class, and affluent Americans. His findings are staggering: when preferences of low- or middle-income Americans diverge from those of the affluent, there is virtually no relationship between policy outcomes and the desires of less advantaged groups. In contrast, affluent Americans' preferences exhibit a substantial relationship with policy outcomes whether their preferences are shared by lower-income groups or not. Gilens shows that representational inequality is spread widely across different policy domains and time periods. Yet Gilens also shows that under specific circumstances the preferences of the middle class and, to a lesser extent, the poor, do seem to matter. In particular, impending elections—especially presidential elections—and an even partisan division in Congress mitigate representational inequality and boost responsiveness to the preferences of the broader public. At a time when economic and political inequality in the United States only continues to rise, Affluence and Influence raises important questions about whether American democracy is truly responding to the needs of all its citizens.
Book Synopsis America's Inequality Trap by : Nathan J. Kelly
Download or read book America's Inequality Trap written by Nathan J. Kelly and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gap between the rich and the poor has grown dramatically in the United States and is now at its widest since at least the early 1900s. While by most measures the economy has been improving, soaring cost of living and stagnant wages have done little to assuage economic anxieties. Conditions like these seem designed to produce a generation-defining intervention to balance the economic scales and enhance opportunities for those at the middle and bottom of the country’s economic ladder—but we have seen nothing of the sort. Nathan J. Kelly argues that a key reason for this is that rising concentrations of wealth create a politics that makes reducing economic inequality more difficult. Kelly convincingly shows that, when a small fraction of the people control most of the economic resources, they also hold a disproportionate amount of political power, hurtling us toward a self-perpetuating plutocracy, or an “inequality trap.” Among other things, the rich support a broad political campaign that convinces voters that policies to reduce inequality are unwise and not in the average voter’s interest, regardless of the real economic impact. They also take advantage of interest groups they generously support to influence Congress and the president, as well as state governments, in ways that stop or slow down reform. One of the key implications of this book is that social policies designed to combat inequality should work hand-in-hand with political reforms that enhance democratic governance and efforts to fight racism, and a coordinated effort on all of these fronts will be needed to reverse the decades-long trend.
Book Synopsis Inequality in America by : Uri B. Dadush
Download or read book Inequality in America written by Uri B. Dadush and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inequality in America provides a snapshot of the issues posed by growing economic disparity, focusing particularly on America but drawing on international comparisons to help set the context. The authors examine the economic, technological, and political drivers of inequality as well as identify worrying trends associated with its rise, making the issues surrounding income distribution accessible to a wider public.
Book Synopsis The Political Economy of Inequality by : Sisay Asefa
Download or read book The Political Economy of Inequality written by Sisay Asefa and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book encapsulates the six papers delivered during the 54th Werner Sichel Lecture Series, held on the campus of Western Michigan University during the academic year 2017-2018. The book's title is taken from the theme for that year's lecture series, "The Political Economy of Inequality: U.S. and Global Dimensions.""--
Book Synopsis The Economic Other by : Meghan Condon
Download or read book The Economic Other written by Meghan Condon and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-08-13 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic inequality is at a record high in the United States, but public demand for redistribution is not rising with it. Meghan Condon and Amber Wichowsky show that this paradox and other mysteries about class and US politics can be solved through a focus on social comparison. Powerful currents compete to propel attention up or down—toward the rich or the poor—pulling politics along in the wake. Through an astute blend of experiments, surveys, and descriptions people offer in their own words, The Economic Other reveals that when less-advantaged Americans compare with the rich, they become more accurate about their own status and want more from government. But American society is structured to prevent upward comparison. In an increasingly divided, anxious nation, opportunities to interact with the country’s richest are shrinking, and people prefer to compare to those below to feel secure. Even when comparison with the rich does occur, many lose confidence in their power to effect change. Laying bare how social comparisons drive political attitudes, The Economic Other is an essential look at the stubborn plight of inequality and the measures needed to solve it.
Book Synopsis Public Policy and the Income Distribution by : Alan J. Auerbach
Download or read book Public Policy and the Income Distribution written by Alan J. Auerbach and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2006-01-23 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last forty years, rising national income has helped reduce poverty rates, but this has been accompanied by an increase in economic inequality. While these trends are largely attributed to technological change and demographic shifts, such as changing birth rates, labor force patterns, and immigration, public policies have also exerted a profound affect on the welfare of Americans. In Public Policy and the Income Distribution, editors Alan Auerbach, David Card, and John Quigley assemble a distinguished roster of policy analysts to confront the key questions about the role of government policy in altering the level and distribution of economic well being. Public Policy and the Income Distribution tackles many of the most difficult and intriguing questions about how government intervention—or lack thereof—has affected the incomes of everyday Americans. Rebecca Blank analyzes welfare reform, and presents systematic research on income, poverty rates, and welfare and labor force participation of single mothers. She finds that single mothers worked more and were less dependent on public assistance following welfare reform, and that low-skilled single mothers had no greater difficulty finding work than others. Timothy Smeeding compares poverty reduction programs in the United States with policies in other developed countries. Poverty and inequality are higher in the United States than in other advanced economies, but Smeeding argues that this is largely a result of policy choices. Poverty rates based on market incomes alone are actually lower in the United States than elsewhere, but government interventions in the United States were less than half as effective at reducing poverty as were programs in the other countries. The most dramatic poverty reduction story of twentieth century America was seen among the elderly, who went from being the age group most likely to live in poverty in the 1960s to the group least likely to be poor at the end of the century. Gary Englehardt and Jonathan Gruber examine the role of policy in alleviating old-age poverty by estimating the impact of Social Security benefits on the income of the elderly poor. They find that the growth in Social Security almost completely explains the large decline in elderly poverty in the United States The twentieth century was remarkable in the extent to which advances in public policy helped improve the economic well being of Americans. Synthesizing existing knowledge on the effectiveness of public policy and contributing valuable new research, Public Policy and the Income Distribution examines public policy's successes, and points out the areas in which progress remains to be made.
Book Synopsis The Politics of Inequality by : Michael Thompson
Download or read book The Politics of Inequality written by Michael Thompson and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the early days of the American republic, political thinkers have maintained that a grossly unequal division of property, wealth, and power would lead to the erosion of democratic life. Yet over the past thirty-five years, neoconservatives and neoliberals alike have redrawn the tenets of American liberalism. Nowhere is this more evident than in our current mainstream political discourse, in which the politics of economic inequality are rarely discussed. In this impassioned book, Michael J. Thompson reaches back into America's rich intellectual history to reclaim the politics of inequality from the distortion of recent American conservatism. He begins by tracing the development of the idea of economic inequality as it has been conceived by political thinkers throughout American history. Then he considers the change in ideas and values that have led to the acceptance and occasional legitimization of economic divisions. Thompson argues that American liberalism has made a profound departure from its original practice of egalitarian critique. It has all but abandoned its antihierarchical and antiaristocratic discourse. Only by resuscitating this tradition can democracy again become meaningful to Americans. The intellectuals who pioneered egalitarian thinking in America believed political and social relations should be free from all forms of domination, servitude, and dependency. They wished to expose the antidemocratic character of economic life under capitalism and hoped to prevent the kind of inequalities that compromise human dignity and freedom-the core principles of early American politics. In their wisdom is a much broader, more compelling view of democratic life and community than we have today, and with this book, Thompson eloquently and adamantly fights to recover this crucial strand of political thought. In this impassioned book, Michael J. Thompson reaches back into America's rich intellectual history to reclaim the politics of inequality from the distortion of recent American conservatism. He begins by tracing the development of the idea of economic inequality as it has been conceived by political thinkers throughout American history. Then he considers the change in ideas and values that have led to the acceptance and occasional legitimization of economic divisions. Thompson argues that American liberalism has made a profound departure from its original practice of egalitarian critique; it has all but abandoned its antihierarchical and antiaristocratic discourse. Only by resuscitating this tradition can democracy again become meaningful to Americans. The intellectuals who pioneered egalitarian thinking in America believed political and social relations should be free from all forms of domination, servitude, and dependency. They wished to expose the antidemocratic character of economic life under capitalism and hoped to prevent the kind of inequalities that compromise human dignity and freedom--the core principles of early American politics. In their wisdom is a much broader, more compelling view of democratic life and community than we have today, and with this book, Thompson eloquently and adamantly fights to recover this crucial strand of political thought.
Book Synopsis Wealth, Poverty and Politics by : Thomas Sowell
Download or read book Wealth, Poverty and Politics written by Thomas Sowell and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Wealth, Poverty, and Politics, Thomas Sowell, one of the foremost conservative public intellectuals in this country, argues that political and ideological struggles have led to dangerous confusion about income inequality in America. Pundits and politically motivated economists trumpet ambiguous statistics and sensational theories while ignoring the true determinant of income inequality: the production of wealth. We cannot properly understand inequality if we focus exclusively on the distribution of wealth and ignore wealth production factors such as geography, demography, and culture. Sowell contends that liberals have a particular interest in misreading the data and chastises them for using income inequality as an argument for the welfare state. Refuting Thomas Piketty, Paul Krugman, and others on the left, Sowell draws on accurate empirical data to show that the inequality is not nearly as extreme or sensational as we have been led to believe. Transcending partisanship through a careful examination of data, Wealth, Poverty, and Politics reveals the truth about the most explosive political issue of our time.
Book Synopsis Putting Inequality in Context by : Christopher Ellis
Download or read book Putting Inequality in Context written by Christopher Ellis and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2021-03-11 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rising income inequality is highlighted as one of the largest challenges facing the United States, affecting civic participation and political representation. Although the wealthy often can and do exert more political influence, this is not always the case. To fix political inequality, it is important to understand exactly how class divisions manifest themselves in political outcomes, and what factors serve to enhance, or depress, inequalities in political voice. Christopher Ellis argues citizens’—and legislators’—views of class politics are driven by lived experience in particular communities. While some experience is formally political, on an informal basis citizens learn a great deal about their position in the broader socioeconomic spectrum and the social norms governing how class intersects with day-to-day life. These factors are important for policymakers, since most legislators do not represent “the public” at large, but specific constituencies. Focusing on U.S. congressional districts as the contextual unit of interest, Ellis argues individuals’ political behavior cannot be separated from their environment, and shows how income’s role in political processes is affected by the contexts in which citizens and legislators interact. Political inequality exists in the aggregate, but it does not exist everywhere. It is, rather, a function of specific arrangements that depress the political influence of the poor. Identifying and understanding these factors is a crucial step in thinking about what reforms might be especially helpful in enhancing equality of political voice.
Book Synopsis Degrees of Inequality by : Suzanne Mettler
Download or read book Degrees of Inequality written by Suzanne Mettler and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America’s higher education system is failing its students. In the space of a generation, we have gone from being the best-educated society in the world to one surpassed by eleven other nations in college graduation rates. Higher education is evolving into a caste system with separate and unequal tiers that take in students from different socio-economic backgrounds and leave them more unequal than when they first enrolled. Until the 1970s, the United States had a proud history of promoting higher education for its citizens. The Morrill Act, the G.I. Bill and Pell Grants enabled Americans from across the income spectrum to attend college and the nation led the world in the percentage of young adults with baccalaureate degrees. Yet since 1980, progress has stalled. Young adults from low to middle income families are not much more likely to graduate from college than four decades ago. When less advantaged students do attend, they are largely sequestered into inferior and often profit-driven institutions, from which many emerge without degrees—and shouldering crushing levels of debt. In Degrees of Inequality, acclaimed political scientist Suzanne Mettler explains why the system has gone so horribly wrong and why the American Dream is increasingly out of reach for so many. In her eye-opening account, she illuminates how political partisanship has overshadowed America’s commitment to equal access to higher education. As politicians capitulate to corporate interests, owners of for-profit colleges benefit, but for far too many students, higher education leaves them with little besides crippling student loan debt. Meanwhile, the nation’s public universities have shifted the burden of rising costs onto students. In an era when a college degree is more linked than ever before to individual—and societal—well-being, these pressures conspire to make it increasingly difficult for students to stay in school long enough to graduate. By abandoning their commitment to students, politicians are imperiling our highest ideals as a nation. Degrees of Inequality offers an impassioned call to reform a higher education system that has come to exacerbate, rather than mitigate, socioeconomic inequality in America.
Book Synopsis Economic Inequality in the United States by : Lars Osberg
Download or read book Economic Inequality in the United States written by Lars Osberg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1984, this study explores multiple theoretical perspectives as well as critically analysing the most recent evidence at the time to try and find a full explanation for inequality in the United States. Arguments of neoclassical economists and Marxist and institutional structuralists are considered by Osberg as well as putting forward his own model. Osberg uses his findings to attempt a complete explanation of the issue and advises on policies which could be undertaken by the government to try and lessen the gap. This title will be of interest to students of Economics.
Book Synopsis Inequality in America by : Uri Dadush
Download or read book Inequality in America written by Uri Dadush and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012-06-20 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bedrock American principle is the idea that all individuals should have the opportunity to succeed on the basis of their own effort, skill, and ingenuity.—Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Income inequality has been on the rise since the late 1970s, but the economic and financial crisis of 2008 instigated an unemployment epidemic that dramatically compounded this problem in the United States and catapulted the issue to the center of debate. There is wide agreement across the political spectrum that high inequality is contributing to undesirable circumstances such as stagnant household income, rising poverty rates, and increased borrowing and debt, though there is much less agreement on remedies. Inequality in America provides a snapshot of the issues posed by the growing concentrations of income, focusing on the United States but drawing on international comparisons to help set the context. The authors examine the economic, technological, and political drivers of inequality and identify worrying trends associated with its rise. They demonstrate how specific factors have exacerbated income inequality, including technological change, international trade, changes in labor market participation, and the increasing role of the financial sector. Their clear and concise exposition makes the issues surrounding income distribution accessible to a wider public. As they write in the conclusion: "We have argued that tackling the worst effects of inequality and re-establishing a measure of equal opportunity requires increased investment in crucial public goods: first, education; second, a more progressive and simplified tax system; and third, increased international cooperation to avoid a race to the bottom. Education, tax, and other such policies are pursued by other highperforming advanced countries and can be shaped for the United States in a way that is fully consistent with an efficient and competitive American economy."
Book Synopsis Winner-Take-All Politics by : Jacob S. Hacker
Download or read book Winner-Take-All Politics written by Jacob S. Hacker and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzes the growing divide between the incomes of the wealthy class and those of middle-income Americans, exonerating popular suspects to argue that the nation's political system promotes greed and under-representation.
Book Synopsis Income Inequality in Capitalist Democracies by : Vicki L. Birchfield
Download or read book Income Inequality in Capitalist Democracies written by Vicki L. Birchfield and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-08-26 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has been much concern about rising levels of income inequality in the societies of advanced industrial democracies. Commentators have attributed this increase to the impact of globalization, the decline of the welfare state, or the erosion of the power of labor unions and their allies among left-wing political parties. But little attention has been paid to variations among these countries in the degree of inequality. This is the subject that Vicki Birchfield tackles in this ambitious book. Differences in political institutions have been seen by political scientists as one likely explanation, but Birchfield shows institutional variation to be only one part of the story. Deploying an original conceptualization of political economy as applied democratic theory, she makes the compelling case that cultural values—particularly citizens' attitudes about social justice and about the proper roles of the market and the state—need to be factored into any account that will provide an adequate explanation for the observable patterns. To support her argument, she brings to bear both multivariate statistical analyses and historical comparative case studies, making this book a model for how quantitative and qualitative research can be effectively combined to produce more complete explanations of political and socioeconomic phenomena.
Book Synopsis America's Inequality Trap by : Nathan J. Kelly
Download or read book America's Inequality Trap written by Nathan J. Kelly and published by Chicago Studies in American Politics. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this book Nate Kelly argues that rising concentrations of wealth creates a politics that makes reducing economic inequality more difficult. Kelly convincingly demonstrates that the concentration of economic resources in a small group leads to a concentration of economic and political power that in turn creates a self-perpetuating plutocracy or an "inequality trap." As economic resources become concentrated, those who control them engage in a variety of political activities that seek to perpetuate their advantages. Among other things, the rich support a broad public campaign that convinces voters that policies to reduce inequality are unwise and not in the average voter's interest, notwithstanding the real economic impact. They also manipulate the formal division of our government into separate branches and a federal system to their advantage"--
Download or read book The Great Gap written by Merike Blofield and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-08-21 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between socioeconomic inequality and democratic politics has been one of the central questions in the social sciences from Aristotle on. Recent waves of democratization, combined with deepened global inequalities, have made understanding this relationship ever more crucial. In The Great Gap, Merike Blofield seeks to contribute to this understanding by analyzing inequality and politics in the region with the highest socioeconomic inequalities in the world: Latin America. The chapters, written by prominent scholars in their fields, address the socioeconomic context and inequality of opportunities; elite culture, public opinion, and media framing; capital mobility, campaign financing, representation, and gender equality policies; and taxation and social policies. Aside from the editor, the contributors are Pablo Alegre, Maurício Bugarin, Daniela Campello, Anna Crespo, Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Fernando Filgueira, Liesl Haas, Sallie Hughes, Juan Pablo Luna, James E. Mahon Jr., Juliana Martínez Franzoni, Adriana Cuoco Portugal, Paola Prado, Elisa P. Reis, Luis Reygadas, Sergio Naruhiko Sakurai, and Koen Voorend.
