Using income surveys and various political-economic data, this book shows that income inequality is fundamental to the dynamics of US politics.

Thinking about political inequality -- Context and inequality in American politics -- Context and political participation -- Class politics and American public opinion -- Political inequality in the United States -- Understanding economic biases in representation -- Political inequality over time -- Putting inequality in context

Introduction -- Economic inequality, federalism and the new economic populism -- Growing inequality and public awareness of inequality in the States -- Awareness of inequality and government liberalism -- Taxing the rich : the initiative, attitudes toward inequality, and Washington's proposition 1098 -- State responses to federal inaction and growing inequality : the case of the minimum wage -- Building on success : the case of the earned income tax credit -- The new economic populism and the future of inequality in the U.S -- Appendix A: Measurement and methodology -- Appendix B: Data and results -- Notes -- References -- Index

Inequality has emerged as a key development challenge. It holds implications for economic growth and redistribution and translates into power asymmetries that can endanger human rights, create conflict, and embed social exclusion and chronic poverty. For these reasons, it underpins intense public and academic debates and has become a dominant policy concern within many countries and in all multilateral agencies. It is at the core of the 17 goals of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This book contributes to this important discussion by presenting assessments of the measurement and analysis of global inequality by leading inequality scholars, aligning these to comprehensive reviews of inequality trends in five of the world's largest developing countries - Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa.

This state-of-the-art volume presents comparative, empirical research on a topic that has long preoccupied scholars, politicians, and everyday citizens: economic inequality. While income and wealth inequality across all populations is the primary focus, the contributions to this book pay special attention to the middle class, a segment often not addressed in inequality literature. Written by leading scholars in the field of economic inequality, all 17 chapters draw on microdata from the databases of LIS, an esteemed cross-national data center based in Luxembourg. Using LIS data to structure a comparative approach, the contributors paint a complex portrait of inequality across affluent countries at the beginning of the 21st century. The volume also trail-blazes new research into inequality in countries newly entering the LIS databases, including Japan, Iceland, India, and South Africa.