ABSTRACT
Despite the predictions of many political economists, Americans have generally moved away from egalitarianism even though economic inequality in the United States is now shockingly high, with the top 1 percent accounting for 20 percent of the nation’s annual income, a trend exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw working-class Americans losing jobs and the top 1 percent getting even richer from a soaring stock market. Progressives have been unable to change things, in part because the mass media (the evening news, daytime drama, and reality TV) constantly herald “the American dream,” a space where everyone eventually becomes rich. This chapter argues that the only alternative to the status quo is to tell the story of poverty more vividly, since people’s willingness to help the poor far surpasses their desire to lower the incomes of the wealthy.
