Religious affiliation appears to have little to no influence on American’s attitudes toward policies designed to counteract income inequality, according to a new study published in Political Research Quarterly.
The study used data from the 2013 Economic Values Survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute. The survey of 2,002 adults included a wide variety of variables, including religious affiliation and beliefs, and demographic, socioeconomic, political, and attitudinal information.
The researchers examined whether religious affiliation was linked to support for tax increases on the rich, support for repeal of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, or support for an increase in the minimum wage.
They found black Protestants were the most likely to endorse these redistributive policies, followed by secular Americans. Catholics and adherents of other faiths fell in the middle of the spectrum. Mainline Protestants supported redistributive policies less than Catholics, but evangelical Protestants had the lowest support for redistributive policies overall.
However, the link between religious affiliation and support for redistributive policies appears to be mostly correlational, rather than a cause-and-effect relationship. “It would appear that any simple differences in support for redistribution policies across religious affiliations are due to the effects of other independent variables,” the researchers said.
After controlling for other variables, only two relationships remained statistically significant: black Protestants’ support for increasing taxes on the rich and evangelical Protestants’ support for increasing the minimum wage. But the effect size was incredibly small.
“We find little evidence that religious affiliation and religiosity influence how individuals think about redistributive policies,” the researchers explained. “However, we do find considerable evidence that identification with the religious right, the perception that churches should work to preserve traditional beliefs, and the belief that Jesus promoted social justice contribute meaningfully to variation in attitudes on redistribution.”
“People who identify with the religious right are less supportive of redistributive policies, as are those who support the idea that churches should preserve traditional beliefs; on the contrary, the belief that Jesus actively promoted social justice is positively related to support for economic redistribution policies.”