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| Author | Jacob S. Hacker Paul Pierson |
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| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | September 14, 2010 |
| Pages | 357 |
| ISBN | 978-1-4165-8869-6 |
| OCLC | 491951058 |
Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class is a 2010 book by political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson. In it the authors argue that contrary to conventional wisdom, the dramatic increase in inequality of income in the United States since 1978—the richest 1% gaining 256% after inflation while the income of the lower earning 80% grew only 20%[1]—is not the natural/inevitable result of increased competition from globalization, but of the work of political forces.[2] Those at the very top of the economic ladder have developed and used political muscle to dramatically cut their taxes, deregulate the financial industry, and keep corporate governance lax and labor unions hamstrung.[3] Instead of a rising tide lifting all boats, the authors write, "yachts are rising, but dinghies are largely staying put" in America, and "there is reason to suspect that the dinghies are staying put in part because the yachts are rising."[4]
- ^ Winner-Take-All Politics, p.23 Figure 2 based on Congressional Budget Office "Historical Effective Tax Rates, 1979-2006"
- ^ Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, p.4, 7
- ^ Winner-Take-All Politics: Public Policy, Political Organization, and the Precipitous Rise of Top Incomes in the United States* Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson. Politics & Society 38(2) 152–204 2010 SAGE Publications
- ^ Winner-Take-All Politics, p.20