New Messaging Shows Promising Results in Persuading Americans to Support Taxing the Rich

Raising taxes on the rich is not only necessary — it’s popular! Yet, we continue to see a gap between this overwhelming support for making the rich pay what they owe and more progressive tax policy becoming the law. In order to build support for a progressive tax system our latest research project at the Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute sought to answer the question: How do we get more Americans to support taxing the rich? 

The audience for this research was Americans who may lean more ideologically moderate, and may be skeptical of progressive policy ideas, but are persuadable. They were recruited and screened for having moderate views on a number of statements relating to billionaires and the American economy.

We discovered that two main narratives dominate the landscape that influences our persuadable audience. The first is that we are trapped in a broken system that is beyond fixing. The second is that billionaires embody the possibility of the American dream so everyone should aspire to follow their example. Although these two ideas can seem conflicting, persuadable audience members can, and often did, hold both of them. 

Given this landscape, we worked with our partners at Wonder:Strategies for Good to design messaging interventions that could move a persuadable person to support progressive tax policy and disrupt excessive wealth accumulation.

One of our key findings — and an important distinction for advocates and movement builders — is that the messages that inspire and motivate our base are not the same messages that convince persuadable Americans to join our fight. In fact, these base-building messages often alienate persuadable folks who are not already part of our base audiences.

Our research audience included 20 in-depth interviewees and 15 focus group participants. The 35 member research audience was comprised of people identifying across the spectrums of political ideology, political party, race, gender, education and income. Here’s what worked:

• Keeping the focus on working people and families as drivers of the economy
• Adhering to a strategically neutral tone through curated details and facts that present “both sides”
• Elevating widely-accepted ideas like simplifying the tax system and eliminating loopholes
• Equipping and amplifying messengers who can demonstrate credibility and wholesome motivations for delivering their message such as (but not limited to) supporters who identify as wealthy themselves, community-oriented financial coaches and experts, and/or faith-based messengers.
• Helping audience members manage their own discomfort around finance and realize their own agency 

On the other hand, we found that the following strategies did not move a persuadable audience to support more progressive tax policy:

• Framing progressive taxes as a punitive measure on the wealthy
• Using language or a tone that reads as partisan or skewed and/or as categorical villainization of the wealthy for having wealth
• Emphasizing the unfairness of the wealth gap as the central focus of your message
• Emphasizing what the progressive tax policy could pay for as the central focus of your message 

The messaging guide includes an in-depth exploration of messages that work and why they work, as well as sample materials we tested. It also provides you support to craft your own messages using our messaging checklist. We hope this guide will be an actionable resource for advocates, policymakers and anyone wishing to speak in a way that resonates meaningfully with persuadable audiences.

This eye-opening research has the potential to transform the way we fight for economic justice. We invite you to dig deeper into the messaging guide and join us in bringing about a future where the majority of Americans, not only support taxing the rich, but are willing to vote and advocate for it.