Sydney Morning Herald
Income now the big divide in US
By Sabrina Tavernise
CONFLICT between rich and poor now eclipses racial strain and friction between immigrants and the native-born as the greatest source of tension in US society, according to a new survey.
About two-thirds of Americans now believe there are ''strong conflicts'' between rich and poor in the US, a survey by the Pew Research Centre found, a sign that the message of income inequality brandished by the Occupy Wall Street movement and pressed by Democrats may be seeping into the national consciousness.
The result was about a 50 per cent increase from a survey in 2009, when anger over the financial industry's role in the recession was festering. In that survey, 47 per cent of those polled said there were strong conflicts between classes.
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''Income inequality is no longer just for economists,'' said Richard Morin, a senior editor at Pew Social & Demographic Trends, which conducted the latest survey, of 2048 adults in December. ''It has moved off the business pages into the front page.''
The new numbers show that perception of class conflict surged the most among whites, middle-income earners and independent voters, the survey found. But it also increased substantially among Republicans, to 55 per cent of those polled, up from 38 per cent in 2009, even as the party leadership has railed against the concept of class divisions.
But while the perception of class conflict has grown, the belief in American upward mobility has not changed. The survey found that grievances against the rich had not increased, with a full 43 per cent of those surveyed saying the rich became wealthy ''mainly because of their own hard work, ambition or education,'' a number that was unchanged from 2008.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/income-now-the-big-divide-in-us-20120115-1q1cs.html
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