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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Central government > Central government policies
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The New Economic Populism - How States Respond to Economic Inequality (Hardcover)
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The New Economic Populism - How States Respond to Economic Inequality (Hardcover)
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Donald Trump's 2016 victory shocked the world, but his appeals to
the economic discontent of the white working class should not be so
surprising, as stagnant wages for the many have been matched with
skyrocketing incomes for the few. Though Trump received high levels
of support from the white working class, once in office, the newly
elected billionaire president appointed a cabinet with a net worth
greater than one-third of American households combined.
Furthermore, he pursued traditionally conservative tax, welfare
state and regulatory policies, which are likely to make inequality
worse. Nevertheless, income inequality has grown over the last few
decades almost regardless of who is elected to the presidency and
congress. There is a growing consensus among scholars that one of
the biggest drivers of income inequality in the United States is
government activity (or inactivity). Just as the New Deal and Great
Society programs played a key role in leveling income distribution
from the 1930s through the 1970s, federal policy since then has
contributed to expanding inequality. Growing inequality bolsters
the resources of the wealthy to influence policy, and it
contributes to partisan polarization. Both prevent the passage of
policy to address inequality, creating a continuous feedback loop
of growing inequality. The authors of this book argue that it is
therefore misguided to look to the federal government, as citizens
have tended to do since the New Deal, to lead on economic policy to
"fix" inequality. At the same time, they demonstrate that the
states are already vigorously confronting this problem. In fact, as
they show, periods of rapid economic change post New Deal have
consistently resulted from state action, while the federal
government has been stymied by the federal institutional design
created through the Constitution. Even the New Deal, in many ways
the model of federal policy activism, was largely borrowed from
policies created in the state "laboratories of democracy" in the
preceding years and decades. William Franko and Christopher Witko
argue that the states that will address inequality are not
necessarily those with the greatest objective inequality, but those
where citizens are aware of growing inequality, where left-leaning
politicians hold power, where unions are strong, and where the
presence of direct democracy initiatives have influenced
majoritarian political institutions. In the empirical chapters
Franko and Witko examine how these factors have shaped policies
that boosted incomes at the bottom (the minimum wage and the Earned
Income Tax Credit) and reduce incomes at the top (with top marginal
tax rates) between 1987 and 2010. The authors argue that, if
history is a guide, increasingly egalitarian policies at the state
level will spread to other states and, eventually, to the federal
level, setting the stage for a more equitable future.
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