Income Redistribution: A Cross-National Analysis

The percent of Gross National Product allocated to Social Security programs was taken as measure of the national effort to redistribute income through government programs. A case-study of the impact of government program expenditures in the United States showed a powerful effect on changing the shape of the income stratification system in a more equitable direction. Analysis of 40 nations found that measures of the equalitarian pressure in the political system, the experience and power of the Social Security bureaucracy, and the condition and characteristics of the national population explained 86 percent of the variance in the percent of GNP allocated to Social Security expenditures. Analysis of high and low GNP nations separately supplied additional evidence supporting the claim that each predictor variable has an independent effect in setting the level of national effort to redistribute and thereby equalize the distribution of income.