“White Americans’ ‘loser’ perceptions and redistributive policy preferences”

Abstract

This paper examines white Americans’ attitudes toward redistribution in the United States. Prior research has identified key predictors of redistribution attitudes, including political ideology, racial prejudice, or resentment. In addition to these factors, a growing body of work highlights the role of perceived status threat. Our study builds on the status threat literature by investigating the impact of racialized loser perceptions on opinions towards redistribution. We rely on evidence from an original survey experiment conducted in the United States in 2019. Specifically, we find that whites who perceive themselves to be on the losing side of politics are more likely to oppose government involvement in redistribution, but only when the comparison to non-whites is made explicit. The effects of racialized loser perceptions are robust to controls for previously identified predictors such as ideology, racial attitudes, and party affiliation. We discuss the implications of our results for the rise of support for right-wing populist movements that champion white protectionism. Our paper contributes to past research by testing the effect of cross-racial comparisons on changes in support for redistribution and demonstrates that even subtle changes in the way the comparison is framed can boost white Americans’ anti-egalitarian positions on redistribution.