Who sees an hourglass? Assessing citizens’ perception of local economic inequality

Abstract

The scholarly literature is observing a slow but steady growth in research exploring the effects of subnational economic inequality on political attitudes and behavior. Germane to this work is the assumption that citizens are aware of the level of inequality in their local residential context. At present, however, the evidence in support of this assumption is mixed. This article attempts to offer the literature improved tests of citizens’ awareness of local inequality by addressing a key limitation in past work—the discordance between the geographic unit underlying measures of the independent and dependent variables. Analyzing two national surveys employing a measure of perceived inequality scaled to the local level, the results suggest that citizens are indeed aware of the level of income inequality in their local environment and that the link between objective and perceived local inequality is most pronounced among lower income citizens.