Angling in and scoping out wealth inequality: Knowledge claims and vantage points in everyday conversations in Brazil, Botswana, Germany, South Africa and the United States

A growing literature documents the pervasive misperceptions and misconceptions of economic inequality as reflected in public opinion and abound in public discourse. Researchers have been quick to develop informational interventions to correct people’s misperceptions, with mixed results. Such interventions sidestep a more foundational question concerning the forms of knowledge people draw on as they engage with inequality and the vantage points from which they approach it.
We investigate how people approach the topic of wealth and inequality in conversations with strangers. Specifically, we ask, do people relay what they know for a fact, what they or people close to them have experienced, or what they’ve heard, read or seen in traditional or social media? Do they approach the topic through a local lens, a national perspective, or a global angle? We draw on conversational data from over 40 two-hour focus group interviews with groups of ordinary people from across the income spectrum, convened in 2024-2025 in 6 countries spanning the Global North and Global South. Our aim is to learn about the prevalence of people’s various vantage points and knowledge claims and how the initial angle taken shapes how others subsequently engage with the topic.
A preliminary analysis of the US focus groups reveals 288 unique references, revealing of three typical knowledge claims drawing on media (traditional or social), experiences (vicarious or personal) and facts, as well as a fourth source being assumptions made about people and social groups. Personal experiences and vicarious experiences account for the majority of references. Assumptions, we find, are more prevalent than references to facts. Counter to expectations, traditional and social media come up the least in conversations about wealth inequality. Further, we find that most people’s vantage points reflect a national or local perspective. In less than a quarter of instances did participants display a global lens. More frequently, people approached economic inequality through the lens of the past or a projection into the future.
Ongoing data analysis will help put these initial findings in a cross-national perspective and allow us to speak to our second research question regarding the conversational impact of the chosen vantage point on wealth inequality.