July 1, 2008 9:00AM # Americans Overwhelmingly Reject Redistribution By [Daniel J. Mitchell](https://www.cato.org/people/daniel-mitchell) --- SHARE In some heartening news, new [poll results](http://www.gallup.com/poll/108445/Americans-Oppose-Income-Redistribution-Fix-Economy.aspx) from Gallup show that Americans decisively reject redistributionist policies by an 84 percent-13 percent margin. Even Democrats prefer that government focuses on growth rather than redistribution by a margin of 77 percent-19 percent. A blogger for the *New Republic* [claims](http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/06/29/do-americans-really-hate-income-redistribution.aspx) the question was poorly worded, but that seems like wishful thinking. People were basically asked whether government should focus on making the pie bigger or focus on re-slicing the pie, and the results are very encouraging: > …given a choice about how government should address the numerous economic difficulties facing today’s consumer, Americans overwhelmingly — by 84% to 13% — prefer that the government focus on improving overall economic conditions and the jobs situation in the United States as opposed to taking steps to distribute wealth more evenly among Americans. … Americans’ lack of support for redistributing wealth to fix the economy spans political parties: Republicans (by 90% to 9%) prefer that the government focus on improving the economy, as do independents (by 85% to 13%) and Democrats (by 77% to 19%). This sentiment also extends across income groups: upper-income Americans prefer that the government focus on improving the economy and jobs by 88% to 10%, concurring with middle-income (83% to 16%) and lower-income (78% to 17%) Americans. … In sum, free-market advocates can take considerable solace in Americans’ overwhelming belief that the government should not focus on redistributing income and wealth, but on improving the overall economy. And, to a lesser degree, Americans also believe government continues to do too much — not too little — to solve the nation’s problems. ##### Related Tags [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).