For Richer or Poorer: The Politics of Redistribution in Bad Economic Times


January 15, 2012

Funding: UC-Davis Center for Poverty Research/ASPE, US Department of Health and Human Services

Summary: This project examines the policy consequences of economic downturns, such as the current fiscal crisis stemming from the Great Recession and its jobless recovery. It is motivated by concern that economic pressures are disproportionately born by the poor—in the form of cut-backs to safety net programs, as well as via longer-term increases in income and political inequality that feed back into future policy debates. We combine data on more than 30 years of state redistributive policy to examine the role of economic conditions in shaping state policy and the role of state policy in shaping income inequality.

 

Researchers

Elizabeth Rigby

Products

Laboratories of (In)equality? Redistributive Policy and Income Inequality in the American States

April 29, 2015

SSN Key Findings Brief: How States can fight Growing Income Inequality

December 01, 2014