This chapter marks a turning point in the story of equality and inequality in America. To this point, I have examined inequality and the politics of inequality through a cross-sectional lens. The degree of inequality, who has the money, what government does to influence inequality, and partisan and ideological differences regarding inequality have been examined using one snapshot frozen in time at the dawn of the twenty-first century. This chapter marks a change in perspective from the static to the dynamic. From this point forward, I will examine movement in income inequality over time and will utilize time series methods to accomplish this task. This change in perspective will provide the capability to examine not just what government does or does not do about inequality, but whether macro political change has influenced the path of income inequality in the United States. By shifting to a cross-temporal analytical perspective, I will assess whether political dynamics are connected to the dynamics of income inequality. For some readers, the simple promise of exploring the connection between politics and income inequality is likely to generate interest in this research. But analyzing the connection between political dynamics and income inequality also sheds light on existing theories and provides opportunities for developing new explanations about the connections between politics and economics.

A THEORY OF DISTRIBUTION AND REDISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES

My examination of the influence of political dynamics on distributional outcomes is rooted, first, in the macro politics model of American politics.