Affluent Americans’ Perception of Insulation May Hinder Policy Progress

Some societal problems have no clear solutions.

But many difficult issues in the United States — including low literacy and the costs, quality, and accessibility of health care — have well-documented, data-based ideas for policy improvement that are ignored by the political system.  

Why isn’t there greater political pressure in the United States to enhance public policy?

A new study from Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies offers some insight.

According to a national survey, wealthy Americans feel their financial resources and influential interpersonal connections can offer them protection from failings of public policy, such as problems with education, health care, and neighborhood safety.

In addition, affluent Americans — defined in the study as those making an annual household income of $200,000 or more — tend to have a more positive outlook compared to other respondents regarding the average person’s financial well-being and ability to handle challenges across these various areas.

“The results indicate that these wealthy individuals are aware that not everyone enjoys the same degree of insulation from poor government performance,” said ISPS Director Alan Gerber, Sterling Professor of Political Science and lead author on the paper. “However, they tend to perceive themselves as insulated and often extend this perception to their views on the circumstances of others. This mindset may dampen elite support for policy reforms that could benefit the broader population.”

Eric Patashnik, Julis-Rabinowitz Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Brown University, and ISPS postdoctoral associate Mackenzie Lockhart were partners in this research.

To explain the lack of pressure for improving public policies, previous research has identified low public knowledge, the spread of misinformation, and low trust in government. In a survey fielded in April, ISPS and its colleague sought an additional reason, assessing how Americans of various incomes perceived their own vulnerability to society problems and how they view the vulnerability of average citizens.

“Instead of focusing on which policies or outcomes different groups endorse, we investigated the challenges individuals face and the extent to which they believe they have the personal resources and social connections to manage those challenges,” Patashnik said. “This approach offers new insights into how people perceive their vulnerability or resilience to societal problems and allows us to see how these perceptions track with factors such as income, education, and political affiliation.”

The researchers found that higher income translates into increased confidence in a respondent’s ability to handle life’s challenges attributable to the government, such as a poorly performing school. In addition, women reported lower perceived resilience to such problems than men, and people who did not graduate college reported lower resilience than college graduates.

The study also found that Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express concern that poor government performance for the average citizen would harm them personally. The authors said they did not have any conclusive evidence to explain this finding, deeming it to be something of a puzzle worthy of further study.

The researchers expressed the possibility of exploring how their findings might translate among people belonging to the top 1% or .1% of U.S. income distributions. And they explored a possible consequence of the study relying on perceptions of vulnerability, not necessarily the reality of the situation. For example, the researchers wondered how survey participants might respond to data showing that privileged white Americans experience better health outcomes than average Americans but not when compared with people in other advanced nations with more efficient health care systems.

“Would the demand of upper-income citizens for significant health care reform grow if the affluent learned that their financial resources and social capital do not in fact guarantee they receive the ‘best health care in the world,’ as many of them appear to believe?” they wrote. “It might be that the belief that they receive better health care than the average American somewhat blinds elites to their personal vulnerability to the documented underperformance of the U.S. health care system.”