Curmudgeon's Corner

How About Some Wealth Redistribution?

Posted by Al Campbell on June 3, 2011

Potpourri, Quality of Life, U.S.

The Gallup organization conducted a poll exploring how we feel about the concept of redistributing wealth.  I guess that might be viewed as sort of a ‘Robin Hood’ approach to evening out the access to money.

I was surprised, although maybe I shouldn’t have been, at the results.

71% of Democrats think we should redistribute wealth while only 28% of Republicans think that should occur.  43% of those calling themselves Independents believe that wealth should be redistributed.

42% of men think wealth should be redistributed while 52% of women think that.  

41% of whites think wealth should be redistributed while 64% of non-whites think so.

31% of those earning $75,000 and above agree that wealth should be redistributed while 51% of those earning between $30,000 and $74,999 think so.  63% of those earning less than $30,000 believe wealth should be redistributed.  (This break-out could’ve been expected.)

When all these subsets are merged, we have 49% saying we should not redistribute wealth while 47% say we should.  This seems to closely parallel the split between those who receive money from the government and those who don’t according to a recent story in the press.

Finally, when the question “Do you feel that the distribution of money and wealth in this country today is fair, or do you feel that the money and wealth in this country should be more evenly distributed among a larger percentage of the people?” was asked, the response was 35% thinking the distribution was fair with 57% feeling it should be more evenly distributed.

I have never thought about wealth or lack of wealth in this way and I have been below $30K and above $75K in my lifetime.  My thoughts were always much more oriented to what I needed to do to change my situation, although no one ever asked me the question in exactly this way.