Live Poster Session: https://wesleyan.zoom.us/j/99139115918
Daniel Chehimi
Daniel is currently a junior double-majoring in Economics and Government with a concentration in International Relations. He is also minoring in Middle East Studies. He is Lebanese-American, and loves to travel!
Abstract: This study examines how income and party affiliation jointly shape attitudes toward Social Security spending in the United States over four decades, using data from the ANES Time Series Cumulative Data File (1948–2024). A logistic regression confirms that higher-income Americans are less likely to support increased Social Security spending, and that this pattern is significantly more pronounced among Republicans than Democrats, with Independents falling between the two parties. Adding a three-way interaction between income, party affiliation, and year reveals that while the overall change over time is statistically significant, preferences in most individual years do not differ meaningfully from 1984, suggesting the basic pattern has remained relatively stable. Notable exceptions emerge in 2012 and 2020, where income mattered less in shaping Republican support, likely reflecting the unifying effect of fiscal crises on Republican attitudes regardless of personal economic stake. The three party lines converge most closely in 2016, potentially suggesting a candidate-specific disruption such as Trump’s populist break from traditional Republican positions on Social Security. Overall, the gap between parties narrows rather than widens over time, indicating that rising partisan polarization has not made Americans more divided along income lines in their views on Social Security. These findings suggest that Social Security occupies a distinct position in American welfare politics, broadly popular enough to resist full partisan sorting, yet not immune to income-based divisions that activate under specific political conditions.
GOVT201_Final-Poster