Living With Inequality: Neighborhood Income Diversity and Perceptions of the Income Gap

• Author: Jeffrey Lyons,Scott L. Minkoff
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• Date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X17733799

733799APRXXX10.1177/1532673X17733799American Politics ResearchMinkoff and Lyons
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American Politics Research
2019, Vol. 47(2) 329 –361
Living With Inequality:
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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X17733799
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Diversity and Perceptions
of the Income Gap
Scott L. Minkoff1 and Jeffrey Lyons2
Abstract
This article explores whether the places where people live—and specifically
the diversity of incomes where people live—influence views about income
inequality. Using a unique survey of New York City that contains geographic
identifiers and questions about attitudes toward inequality, coupled with a
rich array of Census data, we assess the degree to which the income diversity
within spatially customized neighborhood boundaries influences beliefs about
inequality. We find consistent evidence that attitudes about inequality are
influenced by the places where people live—those who are exposed to more
income diversity near their homes perceive larger gaps between the rich and
everybody else, and are more likely to believe that the gap should be smaller.
Moreover, this effect appears to be especially pronounced among those with
lower educational attainment and at either end of the income spectrum.
Keywords
income inequality, political attitudes, social context, spatial analysis
Rising income inequality in the United States is an empirical reality (Piketty,
2014; Piketty & Saez, 2003). Income and racial inequality has also been
1State University of New York, New Paltz, USA
2Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA
Corresponding Author:
Scott L. Minkoff, State University of New York, New Paltz, 1 Hawk Drive, New Paltz,
NY 12561, USA.
Email: minkoffs@newpaltz.edu

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American Politics Research 47(2)
imbedded in American cities and neighborhoods for a long time (Samuelson,
2016). While most Americans do appear to have taken notice of this inequal-
ity (Page & Jacobs, 2009), explanations of why attitudes vary remain under-
developed. The existing research has emphasized individual-level
explanations such as race, income, self-interest, and partisanship (Franko,
Tolbert, & Witko, 2013; Gilens, 1995; Hunt, 2004; Smith, 1985). However,
income inequality is a complex issue and opportunities to learn about income
distributions and their (potential) consequences may be scarce outside of for-
mal education. With this in mind, we theorize that to understand people’s
attitudes about income inequality you also have to understand the places
where people live. The places people live in may serve to expose them to dif-
ferent groups (or not), and in doing so may transmit information or alter
views about groups (such as the rich or poor). Specifically, we hypothesize
that the economic aspects of a person’s neighborhood—namely how diverse
the incomes of households are—transmit information about broader eco-
nomic concerns, and alter perceptions of inequality and attitudes about
whether it is a problem.
We use a unique geocoded 2014 survey of New York City residents to test
our theory. The survey contains questions about income inequality in both the
United States and New York City. By knowing where respondents live, we
are able to explore the extent to which neighborhood contexts matter. Our
results support the idea that neighborhood income diversity increases peo-
ple’s perception of and concerns about the income gap. Those who live in
neighborhoods where they are exposed to both the rich and poor are more
likely to perceive a very large gap in incomes and more likely to believe that
the gap should be smaller. Alternatively, those who live in neighborhoods
characterized by income homogeneity, who do not receive the same kind of
group contact with the rich and poor, perceive of a smaller gap in incomes
and are less concerned about the gap.
These results stand against a backdrop in which there is rising income
homogeneity in American cities and towns (Reardon & Bischoff, 2011)—
the kinds of neighborhoods where we see group contact and changing
attitudes about inequality are in decline as Americans are increasingly
living near people in similar circumstances to themselves. While the
nation is becoming more unequal on the whole, we are less and less likely
to actually be exposed to all ends of the income spectrum and to have
personal experience with the groups that are central to the discussion.
This may help explain why some have argued that attitudes toward
inequality have actually become more conservative as the income gap has
widened (Luttig, 2013; see C. D. Johnston & Newman, 2016 for an alter-
native view).

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Minkoff and Lyons
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Explaining Perceptions of Income Inequality
Scholarly research that centers on income inequality has traditionally focused
on the effects of inequality on a host of societal and democratic outcomes—
that is, inequality as an independent variable that is used to explain cross-
national differences. Income inequality can shape nonpolitical factors such as
happiness (Oishi, Kesebir, & Diener, 2011) and public health (Wilkinson &
Pickett, 2006), as well as have a wide range of political consequences. Places
(either nations or states) with higher levels of inequality see lower levels of
political interest (Solt, 2008), electoral and civic participation (Dahl, 2006;
Lancee & Van de Werfhorst, 2012; Solt, 2008, 2010), and social trust
(Fairbrother & Martin, 2013). Inequality also heightens the importance of
class identification (Andersen & Curtis, 2012), and can reduce tolerance
toward minority groups (Andersen & Fetner, 2008). What these findings
highlight is that variation in inequality—across both countries and states—
can produce differing outcomes for citizens. In many cases, we observe a
number of societal “ills” that arise from income inequality. Despite these
problems, we have seen Americans exhibit a reluctance to favor government
action to address the issue (Shaw & Gaffey, 2012), with some arguing that
rising inequality has actually resulted in greater conservatism in the United
States (Luttig, 2013).
Individual-level explanations of attitudes about income inequality have
garnered much of the explanatory attention with forces such as race (Hunt,
2004), racial attitudes (Gilens, 1995), income (Smith, 1985), economic self-
interest (Franko et al., 2013), and partisanship (Franko et al., 2013) offered as
the most formative. Furthermore, the way in which people attribute blame to
poverty appears to influence the degree to which inequality is seen as a prob-
lem and influences beliefs about whether government should take action—
those who point to structural or external forces as driving poverty or inequality
tend to see inequality as more troubling and favor more governmental action,
while those who view individual or internal forces as the primary explanation
take the opposing stance (e.g., Bullock, Williams, & Limbert, 2003; Hunt,
1996; Schneider & Castillo, 2015).
Given the expanding body of research that supports a connection between
context and attitude formation, we believe that the potential for a spatial con-
text mechanism deserves attention. Across nations, levels of inequality shape
policy opinions pertaining to redistribution and inequality (Finseraas, 2009;
Lupu & Pontusson, 2011), suggesting that contextual effects of inequality
can form citizen attitudes on these topics. Furthermore, there is ample reason
to believe that intracountry economic contexts are noticed by people and mat-
ter for some attitudes. Objective state-level economic indicators have been

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American Politics Research 47(2)
shown to influence perceptions of income inequality (Franko, 2017), county-
level inequality influences beliefs about meritocracy (Newman, Johnston, &
Lown, 2015), county-level median incomes can influence perceptions of
maldistribution (Newman, 2015), and local gender-based income inequality
influences women’s belief in the “American Dream” (Newman, 2016).
Furthermore, local contexts appear to structure the degree to which citizens
favor or oppose larger governmental roles in economic policy (C. D. Johnston
& Newman, 2016). We know less about how seeing and interacting with
economic environments on a daily basis influence or alter attitudes about the
income gap, and the degree to which this issue should be addressed.
Putting Inequality in (a Neighborhood) Context
How do people think about place and inequality? We often talk about inequal-
ity at the country level, where it is easy to conceptualize differing income
distributions as a function of each country’s economy, tax structure, social
support programs, and so on. For example, politicians advocating for more
generous social programs in the United States often make cross-national
comparisons with other systems with lower levels of inequality. This clarity
in thinking about place and inequality at the country level likely becomes
more opaque as we move to lower levels of geographic analysis like the state
or city where economic contexts are less distinct and government policies are
(often) less visible and less varied than they are between nations. That is,
thinking about differences in inequality between the United States and
Denmark is easier to conceptualize than thinking about differences between
Illinois and California or Kansas City and Columbus. Given the challenges
with thinking...