About six in 10 U.S. adults say there is too much economic inequality, a share unchanged from 2019, but more people who hold that view now favor rebuilding the economic system to address it, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
Pew surveyed 5,166 adults Aug. 24-30. Sixty-one percent said there is too much economic inequality, including 78% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning respondents and 42% of Republicans and Republican leaners. Those figures are essentially unchanged from Pewās 2019 survey, the report says.
Among respondents who said inequality is too high, 35% said no amount of inequality is acceptable, up from 29% in 2019. Twenty-four percent said the economic system must be completely rebuilt to address the problem, compared with 14% seven years earlier. These percentages describe the subset concerned about inequality, not all U.S. adults.
Parties differ on causes and remedies
Among Republicans who see too much inequality, 59% said differences in peopleās life choices contribute a great deal to it, compared with 28% of Democrats in that group. Democrats concerned about inequality more often cited the tax system, at 65%, insufficient regulation of major corporations, at 60%, and unequal starting opportunities, at 54%.
Views about the scale of change have moved within both parties. Of Democrats who say there is too much inequality, 25% now favor a complete rebuild, up from 14% in 2019. Among comparable Republicans, the share rose from 12% to 17%, while 57% now favor major changes short of a full rebuild, up from 50%.
Even among those who see too much inequality and want at least major changes, confidence in changing the system is low. Only 8% of Democrats and 11% of Republicans in that group said they were very or extremely confident it could be changed effectively. Pew also found 72% of adults concerned about inequality said the federal government should have a lot of responsibility for reducing it, up from 66% in 2019. State governments drew 57%, up from 52%; large businesses drew 57%, down from 62%.
Government data show wider income and wealth gaps
In a companion analysis, Pew used government data to examine how household finances changed. After inflation adjustment, median income rose 25% for upper-income households from 2001 to 2024, compared with 22% for middle-income households and 17% for lower-income households. The typical upper-income household had 7.3 times the income of a lower-income household in 2024, up from 6.8 times in 2001.
Wealth was more uneven. Median wealth for upper-income households rose 73% from 2001 to 2022, compared with 25% for middle-income households and 8% for lower-income households. The upper-to-lower median wealth ratio grew from 31 to 49 over that period, though Pew notes the gap was even wider in 2016 than in 2022.
Pew defines middle-income households as those earning between two-thirds and twice the national median after adjusting for household size; the thresholds differ by household size. The reportās income figures use Census Bureau survey data, while its wealth figures use the Federal Reserveās Survey of Consumer Finances. The survey methodology reports a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 1.6 percentage points for the full opinion sample; subgroup results have larger margins.
The opinion survey and the historical financial data answer different questions. The survey records what adults believe in 2026, while the income and wealth series track households over earlier years. Neither establishes what caused a change in individual familiesā finances.
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