Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time

TLDR

Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. The study aims to incorporate the preferences of ordinary Americans by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current U.S. wealth distribution. Respondents were then asked to construct ideal wealth distributions reflecting their desired inequality levels.

Abstract

Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. We attempt to insert the desires of "regular" Americans into these debates, by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current distribution of wealth in the United States and to "build a better America" by constructing distributions with their ideal level of inequality. First, respondents dramatically underestimated the current level of wealth inequality. Second, respondents constructed ideal wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution. Most important from a policy perspective, we observed a surprising level of consensus: All demographic groups-even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy-desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo.