Americans Favor Predistributive Over Redistributive Economic Policies

Redistributive policies designed to reduce economic inequality through taxes and transfers (e.g., safety-net benefits funded by progressive taxation) receive less support in the U.S. than in many Western democracies. Recent work suggests Americans may be more receptive to “predistributive” policies, which seek to reduce economic inequality before taxes and transfers (e.g., minimum-wage increases). Yet existing evidence leaves open whether this support gap characterizes contemporary Americans overall, and whether it persists when the same policy proposals are described in predistributive versus redistributive terms, with their core provisions held constant. Across 31 nationally representative U.S. survey waves fielded from 2015 to 2024 (total N=384,248), we find greater support for policies classified as predistributive than redistributive. We then fielded a preregistered experiment with a national U.S. sample (N=1,009), randomly varying whether otherwise identical policy proposals were described as increasing earnings for people lower in the income distribution, shifting resources from higher- to lower-income individuals, or presented only with the brief policy description given in all conditions. Support was higher under predistributive than redistributive descriptions. Comparison with the control condition clarifies this difference: predistributive descriptions received support comparable to control, whereas redistributive descriptions received lower support. Exploratory analyses suggest perceived respect for hard work and deservingness of beneficiaries were associated with the support gap. Together, these results suggest Americans prefer policies that reduce inequality by influencing earnings more than through taxes and transfers.