Social values for equality and preferences for state intervention: Is the USA “Exceptional”?

This paper examines whether public attitudes to economic inequality differ in the USA and Europe or whether the more important difference lies in attitudes to the appropriate role of government in changing inequality, using International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) data on 11 countries from the ISSP “Social Inequality” modules (1987, 1992, 1999 and 2009). In all countries, the vast majority of respondents agree that “income differences are too large”. The ISSP questions on what a corporate CEO and an unskilled factory worker “do earn” and what they “should earn” indicate that respondents generally underestimate the size of current earnings gaps, particularly in the U.S., but the “should earn” ratio is far below actual earnings differentials in all countries. There is no evidence of a simple USA / Europe difference in average preferences for aggregate economic (in) equality, but the most recent data shows evidence for: (1) more dispersion in attitudes among Americans (which is consistent with recent United States voting behavior and opinion polling); (2) a similar distribution of preferences in the USA, Great Britain and Germany for “leveling down” of the top of the earnings distribution – which contrasts with the stronger consensus in Scandinavia and in the transition economies for wage compression.