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- Title
Economic Inequality, the Working Poor, and Belief in the American Dream.
- Authors
Newman, Benjamin J
- Abstract
Does exposure to economic inequality undermine belief in the American dream? Scholarship has long argued that the availability of meritocratic ideologies like the American dream inoculates people against exposure to inequality by leading them to rationalize unequal outcomes by viewing wealth as due to hard work and poverty as due to indolence. The existence of inequality where the "have-nots" are working poor, however, could serve to undermine such a process because their employment status casts them as "deserving poor" and limits the applicability of agency-based explanations for poverty. Across two experiments embedded in national surveys, exposure to inequality alone did not cause significant reductions in belief in the American dream; however, exposure to inequality where the have-nots were working poor significantly reduced belief in the American dream. Moderation and mediation analyses indicate these effects were most pronounced among lower-income Americans and indirectly heightened support for government reduction of inequality.
- Subjects
UNITED States; EQUALITY; AMERICAN Dream; WORKING poor; POOR people's attitudes; POVERTY; LAZINESS; UNITED States economy
- Publication
Public Opinion Quarterly, 2022, Vol 86, Issue 4, p944
- ISSN
0033-362X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/poq/nfac043