Does inequality erode social trust? Results from multilevel models of US states and counties

Previous research has argued that income inequality reduces people’s trust in other people, and that declining social trust in the United States in recent decades has been due to rising levels of income inequality. Using multilevel models fitted to data from the General Social Survey, this paper substantially qualifies these arguments. We show that while people are less trusting in US states with higher income inequality, this association holds only cross-sectionally, not longitudinally; since the 1970s, states experiencing larger increases in inequality have not suffered systematically larger declines in trust. For counties, there is no statistically significant relationship either cross-sectionally or longitudinally. There is therefore only limited empirical support for the argument that inequality influences generalized social trust; and the declining trust of recent decades certainly cannot be attributed to rising inequality.

► We find that people are less trusting in more unequal US states. ► Over time, however, there is no relationship between state inequality and trust. ► We also find there is no relationship between county inequality and trust. ► Contrary to previous research, we thus argue inequality does not cause mistrust.