Polling Pennsylvania: Income Inequality

This is the third installment of RealClear Opinion Research’s continuing exploration of Pennsylvania public opinion. Once again, we’re drawing on a survey of 2,000 residents of Pennsylvania, conducted by Emerson Polling, to explore attitudes surrounding inequality and taxation.

This installment is one that we’re all particularly excited about. Most poll questions ask people what they think about a given policy. We did something slightly different here: We conducted an experiment that required our respondents to give some serious thought to what type of society they would prefer to live in.

Respondents were randomly split into three groups. Each was shown the same unequal option. The first group was asked to choose between a society where half the population earned $20,000 a year while the other half earned $200,000, an average of $110,000.They were asked to weigh that against a society where everyone makes $110,000. In other words, we asked this group to focus just on redistribution.

We asked the second group, however, to compare the $200,000/$20,000 split against a world where everyone makes $40,000. In other words, we introduced a consideration beyond simple leveling. Some would be made richer, some poorer, but overall utility (average income) would be reduced. We asked the final group to compare the unequal distribution against a world where everyone makes $15,000. This adds another step altogether: Everyone makes less money, but they are equal. The rich get poorer, but so do the poor.

The first group was unsurprising. Equality wins easily: Sixty-five percent choose the world where everyone makes $110,000, against 35% for the unequal split with the identical average. In the second group, where respondents were given a choice between a much smaller pie, but one where there are still winners and losers, equality still wins, 62% to 38%. What’s most surprising is the popularity of the “everyone loses” scenario. If we drop the outcome to $15,000 for everyone, it’s close. Fifty-one percent still pick equal, 49% pick unequal.

This suggests that utilitarian arguments for income inequality – that this makes everyone better to some degree – have less pull than many conservatives would hope. The preference for leveling is strong enough that respondents will prefer a worse world overall. Remember, this isn’t presented as a cascade of questions where people will naturally be drawn toward the middle: Everyone got just one question and was asked to evaluate it. Regardless, the preference for equality holds up much more strongly than plain self-interest would predict.

Unsurprisingly, there are partisan differences, but perhaps not as strong as you would think. When overall average income remains the same, Democrats prefer the equal world 73% to 27%, and independents 70% to 30%. Even Republicans, however, lean the same way, 53% to 47%. By the time the equal option has fallen to $15,000, the Republican approach flips: Sixty-six percent now prefer the unequal world with the $200,000 earners, versus 34% who’d prefer equal poverty. Support for the equal outcome is lower among the Democrats and independents, down to 53%-47% and 55%-45% in favor of the equal-but-poor outcome.

There are a few assumptions worth pointing out. First, and critically, the experiment assumes people actually did the math. In other words, we assume that, on average, they registered $110,000 as the mean of a $20,000-and-$200,000 split, and figured out that $15,000 sits below even the poorer half’s income in the unequal world. Not everyone is mathematically apt, and not everyone will be drawn to a mindset of “let’s look at total utility/average income.” Some might see the “half rich, half poor” framing on instinct and not take the next step, particularly since they weren’t viewing the options as a part of a progression. In other words, the conclusion that we find a real tolerance for universal material sacrifice in the name of equality could just be a restatement of the value of equality. We also never explained why the $20,000/$200,000 split exists. It could be effort, luck, or exploitation, even though we suspect real-world tolerance for inequality might hinge, at least in part, on whether people believe it was earned. Finally, this was a hypothetical, no-stakes judgment about an imagined society, not a real vote with real consequences for the respondent’s own paycheck, and stated preferences like this one tend to run more generous than people’s actual choices once something real is on the line.

So, the precise way to describe what this experiment found isn’t that Pennsylvanians love equality, or that the parties disagree about fairness. It’s narrower, and more interesting: Nearly everyone starts from the same place, a strong preference for a more equal world even when it costs nothing to have it. There are some differences by party, but overall it is less pronounced than many conservatives would likely expect.