Ethics Newsline®

Poll: “Many Americans OK With Increasing Taxes on Rich”

Apr 28th, 2008 • Posted in: Research Report

“Most say upper-income households pay too little in taxes”

From Gallup:

“Slightly over half of Americans believe the government should redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich.

“The percentage holding this view, similar to that found in Gallup polling last year, is up from 1998….

“Other recent Gallup Poll questions underscore the finding that Americans are generally open to the idea of some type of effort to distribute wealth more evenly.

“Asked if the distribution of money and wealth in this country is fair or if they need to be distributed more evenly, about two-thirds of Americans agree with the latter response. This is up slightly from last year and, by two points, is the highest ‘more evenly distributed’ response to this question that Gallup has found over the eight times it has been asked since 1984….

“One reason it may be easy for Americans to readily agree with wealth redistribution and increased taxes on the rich is that most Americans do not perceive themselves to be rich and therefore presumably assume they have nothing to fear — financially — from such new policies.

“Analysis of the responses to these two questions by income shows that there are some differences by respondents’ income, but these differences are not large….

“The possibility of some type of political policy that would institute higher tax rates on high-income households was discussed in the recent Philadelphia debate between the two Democratic contenders, and both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama appeared to agree with some variant of this type of policy (although both are multimillionaires, according to their recently released tax statements). The public opinion data reviewed here suggest a majority of Americans would be receptive to such a possibility….”