This book examines how political party power influences public spending and private subsidies, and how these changes affect inequality.

How does political party control determine changes to social policy, and by extension, influence inequality in America? Conventional theories show that Democratic control of the federal government produces more social expenditures and less inequality. Welfare for the Wealthy reexamines this relationship by evaluating how political party power results in changes to both public social spending and subsidies for private welfare and how a tradeoff between the two, in turn, affects income inequality. Christopher Faricy finds that both Democrats and Republicans have increased social spending over...