Religion and Attitudes toward Redistributive Policies among Americans

Abstract

Scholars have devoted considerable attention to understanding how individuals’ political and economic attitudes shape their views toward government policies designed to alleviate growing income inequality in the United States. However, much less attention has been paid to the question of how religion shapes Americans’ attitudes toward income inequality and redistributive policies. Using data drawn from the 2013 Economic Values Survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), we explore the role that religion—including religious affiliation, the degree and nature of religiosity, the nexus of politics and religion, and interpretations of biblical text—plays in structuring individuals’ attitudes toward government redistribution policies. We find that religious affiliation and participation do not meaningfully shape attitudes toward redistributive policies; however, identification with the “religious right” and specific interpretations of scripture do influence how Americans think about redistribution. These findings provide evidence that standard treatments of religion focusing primarily on affiliation and religiosity may have somewhat limited explanatory power with regard to attitudes about issues that fall outside of the standard “culture wars” framework, at least relative to the explanatory power of more specific expressions of religious belief.