The Effect of Political Outcomes across the United States on Income Equality

The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between a specific measure of inequality and political outcomes across the United States. To test this relationship, I run regressions with the Gini coefficient of the U.S. states across a 40-year time span against which political party was in control of that state's governorship and legislature. I find some evidence that Democratic governors are associated with declining inequality. However, as additional financial and demographic control variables are included, the sample size becomes smaller and the results are not significant.