Retreating from Redistribution? Trends in Democratic Party Fidelity to Economic Equality, 1984-2020

Polarization of the Rich: The New Democratic Allegiance of Affluent Americans and the Politics of Redistribution

“…Multiple recent studies of European politics show some suggestive evidence that center-left partieswho have been gaining increasing support from highereducated, middle-and high-income professionals-have shifted their economic policy agendas from mitigating "old" labor market risks (e.g., unemployment) to "new" risks (e.g., education, childcare spending), therefore overall still supporting some forms of welfare state policies (Gingrich and Hausermann 2015;Abou-Chadi and Emmergut 2019). One American study of the Democratic Party platform found that since the 1990s, it has increased its rhetorical mentions of welfare policies, although it has not much increased its mentions of redistributive taxation (Malpas and Hilton 2021). On the federal level in the contemporary political moment, the Democratic presidential and congressional policy strategy has included the American Rescue Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the Build Back Better Act (which only passed through the U.S. House), displaying a party agenda that prioritizes spending on infrastructure (both physical and "human" infrastructure) and will do short-term welfare spending when necessary, but largely leaves increased progressive taxation-or, more broadly, imposing any costs on more-affluent voters-untouched.…”

“…In the 1990s and 2000s, Democratic elites converged with Republicans on immigration and trade (i.e., becoming more open to them, e.g., Greenberg 2017; Geismer 2022), financial deregulation (Keller and Kelly 2015;Kelly 2020;Geismer 2022), and somewhat on welfare (Geismer 2022). Democratic politicians like Bill Clinton were also more hostile toward organized labor than any Democrats for decades (Geismer 2022; in part a reflection of the decline of the power of organized labor, e.g., Rosenfeld 2014), and while the Democratic Party platform has increased its rhetorical focus on means-tested and public goods spending since the 1990s, it has not much increased its focus on increasingly progressive taxation (Malpas and Hilton 2021), even after Democrats played a key role, alongside Ronald Reagan, in massively cutting the top income tax rates in the 1980s (Prasad 2019). To be sure, the Republican Party's economic agenda has remained largely in favor of minimal government taxation, spending, and regulation for decades (Hacker and Pierson 2020).…”