Growing Perception of Class Warfare In The US: Study

By: EW News Desk Team   Date: 16 January 2012

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16 January 2012

More Americans today believe that there is a conflict between the rich and poor in the country as compared to two years ago, claimed survey findings published by Pew Research Center last Wednesday; with tensions over wealth inequality seen to be even greater than those over immigration, race or age.

According to the survey results, 66 percent of Americans thought that there was a “strong” or “very strong” conflict between the different income classes in the US, while only 7 percent of the respondents believed that no conflict existed between the rich and the poor at all.

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To compound the issue further, 30 percent of Americans indicated that there were “very strong conflicts” between the poor and rich – almost double the respondents that had answered similarly in 2009 and the largest share expressing this opinion since the question was first asked in 1987.

“These changes in attitudes over a relatively short period of time may reflect the income and wealth inequality message conveyed by Occupy Wall Street protesters across the country in late 2011 that led to a spike in media attention to the topic,” claimed the survey’s lead researcher Rich Morin, who also discovered that younger adults, women, Democrats and African Americans had been more likely to perceive a class conflict than other social groups.

Yet, while more Americans now perceive that a class conflict exists in the country, the attitudes towards the rich have remained largely unchanged. 46 percent of respondents believed that most rich people “are wealthy mainly because they know the right people or were born into wealthy families,” while a further 43 percent said that wealthy people had become rich “mainly because of their own hard work, ambition or education.”

“Attitudes toward the wealthy—specifically, how the rich got that way—are somewhat correlated with views on class conflict,” added the report, noting that those who believe the rich acquired their fortunes mainly through their own efforts were significantly less likely to indicate a strong conflicts between the classes, than those who had thought otherwise. (60 percent vs. 72 percent).

The survey also discovered that nearly every income group had seen a rise among respondents who felt that there was a “strong” or “very strong” conflict between the rich and the poor, with the largest increase seen among respondents earning between $40,000-$75,000 annually (47 percent in 2009 to 71 percent in 2011).

While the survey findings stopped short of confirming the actual existence of a class warfare in the US, it noted that the issue of a class conflict had “captured a growing share of the national consciousness.”

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Related: Sorry “99%”, There Are No Quick Fixes For Inequality: Raghuram Rajan

Pew also cautioned that the findings “do not necessarily signal an increase in grievances toward the wealthy.”

“It is possible that individuals who see more conflict between the classes think that anger toward the rich is misdirected. Nor do these data suggest growing support for government measures to reduce income inequality.”


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