Oct. 14 (UPI) — A growing number of Americans who say the United States has too much economic inequality think the country’s economic system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, a Pew Research poll released Wednesday said.
The overall percentage of those who say there’s too much inequality remains about 61%, a figure that’s little changed from 2019, Pew said. Similarly, those who identify themselves as Democrats or leaning that way were much more likely to say this (about 78%) versus those who identify themselves as Republicans or leaning that way (about 42%).
However, 24% of those polled now say the economic system needs to be completely rebuilt to address this inequality, up from 14%. Likewise, 35% of those polled now say that no amount of economic inequality is acceptable, up from 29%.
“Both Democrats and Republicans who see too much inequality are now more likely to say the country’s economic system requires major changes or needs to be completely rebuilt in order to address it,” Pew said.
The poll also showed that confidence that the economic system can be effectively changed to address inequality is low, however. Of those who said both that there is too much inequality and that major changes are needed to address it, 11% of Republicans and 8% of Democrats were “extremely or very confident” that the system can be effectively changed.
On the flip side, 70% of Democrats and 55% of Republicans said they were not very confident or not at all confident that such effective changes could be made.
People in the two parties who agreed on too much inequality differed, though, on what contributes to that inequality. Of Republicans, 59% said people’s life choices contributed to economic equality a great deal, while 28% of Democrats in this group agreed.
Of the Democrats who said there is too much inequality, 65% said the U.S. tax system contributes a great deal and 60% said insufficient regulation of major corporations contributes a great deal. About 54% said people starting out with more opportunities than others contributes a great deal to economic equality.
Of those who said there is too much economic inequality in the United States, 70% said the federal government should have “a lot of responsibility” in reducing it, up from 66% in 2019. About 57% said state governments should have a lot of responsibility, up from 52% in 2019.
About 57% also said large businesses and corporations should have a lot of responsibility in that, although that percentage is down from 62% in the prior poll.
Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to say those three entities, plus wealthy individuals, should play a major role in reducing economic inequality.
The poll results are based on a survey of 5,166 U.S. adults between Aug. 24 and 30.
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