The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which observing economic inequality impacts people’s attitudes towards income inequality in America. Given the increasing disparities between high- and low-income Americans, social scientists are tasked with understanding public sentiment to find the factors that influence voting and policy decisions. Based on existing research on the intergroup contact hypothesis, higher income individuals  observing economic inequality may promote positive attitudes and encourage positive social change. This study uses a representative sample of adults in the United States collected from the 2021 General Social Survey. To model attitudes towards income inequality, the appropriate survey items were used to create two indexes for the dependent variable: egalitarianism and approval of government policy. A regression analysis was conducted to model the relationship between contact with low-income people and both egalitarianism and approval of government policy. Contrary to supporting literature, the analysis yielded no significant correlation between the independent and dependent variables and suggests a need for further understanding of the intergroup contact hypothesis and income inequality.  

 

        The public’s perception and understanding of income inequality in America is largely controlled by mass media representation, which frequently frames inequality issues as an outcome of the U.S. as a meritocracy (Grisold and Theine 2020). Such ideologies on the importance of hard work and personal merit to get ahead have long dominated American culture and undermine the role of structural inequities that stifle economic mobility of disadvantaged groups. By citing no clear cause or actionable solution to economic inequality, the media’s misrepresentation is thought to promote a sense of apathy towards social issues and decrease political action despite survey reports that show the public is mostly aware of economic inequality in their local communities and in the nation as a whole (Kensicki 2004; Newman, Shah, and Lauterbach 2018). Blasi (1994) also notes that the media’s overuse of stigmatized terms like ‘homeless’ rather than ‘poverty’ or ‘the poor’ negatively shapes the perceptions of both policymakers and the public on reducing income inequality, which prevents us from clearly understanding the inequities that surround us.  

        This barrier to understanding economic inequality is then perpetuated by social networks. By surrounding ourselves with people who are demographically and socioeconomically similar, we fail to witness experiences that differ from our own. We also form a group identity with the people in our network, encouraging the formation of group boundaries and outgroup hostility to those outside of them. Social network effects also serve to perpetuate intergroup inequality by keeping knowledge of beneficial practices and resources within social networks that are already advantaged and keeping perhaps detrimental practices within social networks that are already economically disadvantaged (DiMaggio and Garip 2012). 

        Bridging social network boundaries by coming into contact with different social groups is a solution that may help overcome media misrepresentation and stereotypes often perpetuated about low-income people. There has been ample research on the intergroup contact hypothesis, which explains how contact and cooperation between groups often decrease outgroup prejudice and promotes positive regard (Allport 1954). Allport’s original research notes that the association is only observed under the optimal conditions of equal status in the collaborative environment, intergroup cooperation, common goals, and authority support, though recent applications of the theory have found supporting evidence without these conditions present (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006). Though contact may decrease intergroup tensions, there is mixed research on whether it results in actionable reduction of inequality. Some studies have failed to find a causal link between intergroup contact and collective action intentions over time (Sengupta 2023). Within an advantaged group, studies have also found that individuals might approve of the principle of equality while still disapproving of policy and practices that promote equality, termed the principle implementation gap (Dixon, Durrheim, and Tredoux 2007). Still, there are many bodies of research that support the collective action claim of the intergroup contact theory, demonstrating positive intergroup relations to be associated with increased support for social change and policy benefitting disadvantaged groups by advantaged group members (Reimer et al. 2016; Di Bernardo et al. 2019). 

        Research that supports the association of intergroup contact with advantaged groups’ collective action often cites social identification with the disadvantaged group as a key correlate, based on the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA) (Thomas, Mavor, and McGarty 2011; Thomas et al. 2019). SIMCA proposes perceived injustice, group identification, and efficacy as causal factors in predicting collective action (van Zomeren, Postmes, and Spears 2008). Group identification can also increase feelings of empathy and perspective taking on the part of the advantaged group, which is a key mediator between intergroup contact and action to reduce inequality (Pettigrew and Tropp 2008). Interestingly, positive intergroup contact has been shown to decrease approval of policy among disadvantaged groups that benefit themselves due to decreased feelings of personal injustice and overall perception of group inequalities (Sengupta and Sibley 2013). The emergence of positive feelings and group identity create a ‘sedative effect’ on the disadvantaged group, decreasing their perceptions of relative deprivation and lowering motivation to take collective action (Cakal et al. 2011).  

        Much of the research on the contact hypothesis focuses on racial and ethnic inequality, but there is less evidence supporting the contact hypothesis for income inequality. Existing studies have found that contact with lower-class individuals is associated with empathy and positive feelings towards them (Lee, Ferrell, and Link 2004) as well as lower personal contribution to inequality (Vázquez et al. 2022). This study aims to expand the breadth of existing research by directly evaluating attitudes on economic policy. While Lee et al. (2004) also identified policy attitudes, such as what participants perceive the rights of homeless people to be and their personal willingness to take collective action, this study includes measures that reflect respondents’ views on how the government should or should not be addressing income inequality, which supports a more direct link to respondents’ real levels of collective action in voting for policy that favors the economically disadvantaged.  

 

Data and Methods 

The data used in this study were taken from the 2021 General Social Survey collected by the nonpartisan and objective research organization NORC at the University of Chicago. The 2021 GSS data were collected from a representative sample of adults 18 years or older in the United States in December 2020 through May 2021, sampling addresses from NORC National Sampling Frame and the USPS Computerized Delivery Sequence File. Mail invitations were sent to households directing them to complete the self-administered online survey, available in both English and Spanish, with the option to complete the survey by phone. Not all questions are asked of all respondents; rather, the 2021 GSS is divided into three different “ballots” of questions and administered in two different “forms,” resulting in 6 different versions of the questionnaire in each of two languages with respondents randomly assigned to particular ballots and forms. The GSS yielded a 17.4% response rate, resulting in the final full sample of 4032 respondents (2021 GSS Codebook, Davern et al. 2021). The final analysis was weighted to account for under-response and produce a more demographically representative sample using the post-stratification weight variable WTSSPS. See Table 1 for descriptive statistics of all variables used.  

 
 

Table 1. Descriptive statistics (n=319) 

 

 

Note: Statistics were calculated after removing missing and low-income cases. 

 

 

 

Dependent variables 

The first dependent variable is an index to measure egalitarianism – the extent to which respondents see income inequality as an important problem in the United States – and is composed of three survey items. They are listed below with their original GSS variable names, response options, and total valid responses.  

 

RICHHLTH: Is it just or unjust – right or wrong – that people with higher incomes can buy better health care than people with lower incomes? 

1 - Very just, definitely right 

2 - Somewhat just, right 

3 - Neither just nor unjust, mixed feelings 

4 - Somewhat unjust, wrong 

5 - Very unjust, definitely wrong  

N = 1771  

 

RICHEDUC: Is it just or unjust – right or wrong – that people with higher incomes can buy better education for their children than people with lower incomes? 

1 - Very just, definitely right 

2 - Somewhat just, right 

3 - Neither just nor unjust, mixed feelings 

4 - Somewhat unjust, wrong 

5 - Very unjust, definitely wrong  

N = 1769 

 

INEQMAD: Some people feel angry about differences in wealth between the rich and the poor, while others do not. How do you feel when you think about differences in wealth 

between the rich and the poor in America? Please place yourself on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 means not angry at all and 10 means extremely angry. 

0 - Not angry at all  

1-9 

10 - Extremely angry 

N = 1778 

 

These survey items ask whether the respondents find income inequality to be fair and whether it makes them angry, which best represents the respondents’ perception of and feelings towards the issue of income inequality. The item INEQMAD was recoded from 11 values into five by adding one and multiplying it by 5/11 to make it comparable with the other two items with five values. The Pearson correlation coefficients for these items range from 0.51 to 0.81 and are significant at the .001 level. The items have a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.82, which indicates an acceptable level of reliability for basic research purposes. The resulting egalitarianism index has 1709 valid responses with a minimum value of 2.45 and a maximum value of 15. See Table 2 for the correlation coefficients. 

        The second dependent variable is an index to measure approval of policy – the extent to which respondents support the government enacting policy to support low-income Americans and reduce income inequality – and is composed of four variables. They are listed below with their original GSS variable names, response options, and total valid responses. 

 

EQWLTH: Some people think that the government in Washington ought to reduce the income differences between the rich and the poor, perhaps by raising the taxes of wealthy families or by giving income assistance to the poor. Others think that the government should not concern itself with reducing this income difference between the rich and the poor. Here is a scale from 1 to 7. Think of a score of 1 as meaning that the government ought to reduce the income differences between rich and poor, and a score of 7 meaning that the government should not concern itself with reducing income differences. What score between 1 and 7 comes closest to the way you feel? 

1 - The government should reduce income differences 

2-6 

7 - The government should not concern itself with reducing income differences 

n = 2661 

 

HELPPOOR: Next, here are issues that some people tell us are important. 

Some people think that the government in Washington should do everything possible to improve the standard of living of all poor Americans, they are at Point 1 on the scale below. Other people think it is not the government’s responsibility, and that each person should take care of himself, they are at Point 5. Where would you place yourself on this scale, or haven't you made up your mind on this? 

1 - Government should help  

2  

3 - Agree with both 

4  

5 - People should help themselves 

n = 2633 

 

GOVUNEMP: The government should provide a decent standard of living for the 

unemployed. 

1 - Strongly agree 

2 - Agree 

3 - Neither agree nor disagree 

4 - Disagree 

5 - Strongly disagree 

n = 1784 

 

NATFARE: (... are we spending too much, too little, or about the right amount on) Welfare 

1 - Too little 

2 - About right 

3 - Too much 

n = 1970 

 

Because all four policy items have low values that represent approval of egalitarian policy and high values that represent disapproval, the items were reverse coded so that low values represent disapproval and high values represent approval. The items EQWLTH and NATFARE were then recoded from seven and three response values respectively into five by multiplying by 5/7 (EQWLTH) and 5/3 (NATFARE) to make them comparable to the other items with five values. The Pearson correlation coefficients for these items range from 0.53 to 0.71 and are significant at the .001 level. The items have a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.89, which indicates an acceptable level of reliability for basic research purposes. The resulting policy index has 573 valid responses with a minimum value of 4.38 and a maximum value of 20. See Table 2 for the correlation coefficients. 

Table 3. Regression models 

 

Independent variables		Egalitarianism model			Approval of government policy model
CONTPOOR		0.06			0.04
AGE		-0.16	*		-0.19	***
EDUC		0.04			0.06
Gender (Male = 1)		-0.19	***		-0.11	*
Race (White = 1)		-0.06			-0.16	**
Religion (Christian = 1)		-0.18	**		-0.26	***
R2		0.10			0.16
n		319			319

 

Note: Coefficients are standardized regression coefficients (betas). 

 

*p ≤ 0.05 

**p ≤ 0.01 

***p ≤ 0.001 

 

 

Conclusion 

This study aimed to examine the relationships between observing income inequality and respondents’ egalitarianism attitudes and approval of government policy. Based on the intergroup contact hypothesis, coming in contact with low-income people may foster group identification with them and promote positive feelings. However, the application of the intergroup contact hypothesis to social class groups is limited, and few studies have directly addressed how respondents perceive the federal government’s role in reducing income inequality. Using survey data from the 2021 GSS, I conducted a regression analysis using the independent variable CONTPOOR, frequency of contact with low-income people, in models for two dependent variables – egalitarianism and approval of government policy – controlling for sociodemographic factors. The two dependent variables are indexes composed of multiple related survey items from the GSS. The analysis yielded no significant relationship between contact with low-income people and the two dependent variables.  

        In utilizing secondary analysis, there are limitations to the study design that may have influenced these unexpected results. One limitation of this study is its reliance on self-report measures. Respondents were asked to report their frequency of contact with people poorer than themselves for the CONTPOOR variable, which is subject to inaccuracies based on the respondents’ memories. Experimental study designs that can measure and control frequency of contact may be more reliable in this regard. Confounding variables not addressed by the sociodemographic controls may also affect attitudes towards income inequality, such as exposure to biased media, political ideology, or previous experiences with income inequality. Future research might employ longitudinal or experimental designs to provide stronger evidence for causal relationships, as well as include a wider range of control variables. Additionally, the data used for this analysis was collected in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which could have skewed responses to CONTPOOR. The major shift towards virtual and distanced interactions during the pandemic likely reduced existing interactions with lower-income people, resulting in fewer respondents reporting such interactions and a smaller sample size. 

        Though this study did not find statistically significant support for the expected relationship, i.e., that contact with low-income people is positively related to egalitarianism and approval of policy models, it still raises pertinent questions on the conditions for applicability of the intergroup contact hypothesis to income inequality and for future research in understanding social distance. This may suggest that the optimal conditions of the intergroup contact hypothesis do play an important role. The optimal conditions from intergroup contact literature such as a positive connection and collaboration between groups were not met here, as the independent variable refers to any sort of contact with people a lot poorer than the respondent. This could include a range of situations, from briefly seeing homeless people in public to interacting closely with them in a social services position, for example. If most of the respondents’ interactions are more like the former, the contact may not be substantial enough to impact attitudes towards income inequality. Although the nature of the question suggests an awareness of inequality, that it references people who are perceived to be a lot poorer than the respondent, their class status may not be a relevant part of those interactions. Low-income and homeless populations are also highly stigmatized and even feared, which further discourages any positive, collaborative interaction to model the intergroup contact hypothesis. Given the plethora of research supporting the intergroup contact hypothesis, these results also suggest a need for continued research to expand our understanding of the applicability of the intergroup contact hypothesis to income inequality, as opposed to racial or ethnic inequality. This might suggest fundamental differences in social perceptions of group belonging and social distance pertaining to income inequalities and require a more tailored approach to its unique nature.  

 

 

 

 

 

References