Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T15:40:37.152Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Fiscal Stress and the Erosion of Social Solidarity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2023

Charlotte Cavaillé
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Get access

Summary

Two groups display the highest support for generous redistribution to policies: (1) low-income beneficiaries, irrespective of their reciprocity beliefs, and (2) high-income contributors who trust that these policies benefit deserving recipients. This coalition is held together by redistribution to policies’ asymmetric economic implications. For low-income beneficiaries, redistribution to policies are high stakes, explaining high baseline support irrespective of reciprocity beliefs. In contrast, the uncertainty over the costs to high-income contributors of more generous redistribution to policies favors fairness reasoning, explaining higher than expected support within this group. Chapter 7 argues that fiscal stress, in the form of fiscal adjustment, can introduce a wedge in this pro-redistribution to coalition. Indeed, when the tax implications of generous social spending are no longer a hypothetical, it becomes much easier for people to reason from the perspective of their own pocketbook. In such a context, high-income respondents will react by choosing to concentrate financial efforts on social programs they directly benefit from, at the expense of redistribution to policies.

Type
Chapter
Information
Fair Enough?
Support for Redistribution in the Age of Inequality
, pp. 142 - 163
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×