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this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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My friend says people turn Republican once they hit 6 figure incomes and get mad that half their money goes "to the lazy poors who are beneath them".
They are rich enough to feel comfortable but poor enough that they still have to pay taxes.
But when most people are poor, that doesn't happen. You get more socialist/leftist.
Of course you also get the people with no critical thinking voting against their own self interest. Poor or otherwise.
We might see that group increase, but since the middle class is collapsing, there are less people in that 6 figures group.
6 figure incomes aren’t suddenly turning republican. That’s not what happens.
I think her point was that once someone gets a little better off than most of the rest of the population they get haughty. And then they see the poorer people as stealing half their money in taxes. And become against taxes and business regulations. Because it affects them more directly.
And holding conservative fiscal values leads to adopting the social ones because it comes back to welfare scapegoating. And who you are rubbing elbows with. The echo chamber.
It's well known with psych research that being more wealthy (even in a pretend game) makes people less charitable and less likely to help out others.
People start to see themselves as better than rest. And likely because of the fundamental attribution bias, believe they are better off because they are deserving. Which means those not doing well, deserve their place too.
My friend was giving a theory on how this trend works to change mindsets.
We were discussing why it is that people who come from poverty and become wealthy, often have no problem exploiting the people from their own background. When you would expect more sympathy.
Your arguments have a few flaws. The most likely explanation is that selfish people continue to be selfish- whether poor or well-off. This particular group simply looks out for their own interests, whether at the benefit or the cost of others, regardless of where they are in life. They don’t change and suddenly “get haughty”.
You are confusing correlation with causation. Studies indicate those well-off donate ~~less~~ at a lower rate/incidence than the poor. There are several reasons to explain this other than to assume people change because of the money. For one, the personality and nature that often drives wealth accumulation is directly related to a lack of charity. For two, income directly relates to an uptake of religion.. hence charitable giving and a desire to give to community.
I'm not talking about correlation studies only. I'm talking about experiments.
Together they both show more wealth equates to being less charitable.
It makes sense if you understand that most people ascribe in the fundamental attribution error.
To put simply. "If I do well it's cause I deserve it and worked for it. If other people do well it's because they got lucky or circumstances out of their control.
If I do poorly it's because of circumstances out of my control. If other people do poorly it's because they aren't trying hard enough. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
The better off you are. The more you see others below you as just lazy and undeserving.
Again. This is a trend. Not true for everyone.
Just because you don't fit that trend does not make it untrue.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20649364/ Having less, giving more: the influence of social class on prosocial behavior (Correlation study)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35409667/ Social Class Priming Effect on Prosociality: Evidence from Explicit and Implicit Measures (Experimental effect)
Both of these papers give background reviews of the literature on this topic. There are literally thousands of studies on this topic. Some correlation and some experimental.
When I job hopped and went from $70k to $150k/yr I was really mad I was getting taxed so much because it meant the US government was using it to kill people (before that even I was making more like 20k most my life). I love taxes when they go to the right place, I want to be taxed: I voted in support of every increase in taxes that came across the ballot that was related to things that I felt would benefit the community. Suddenly I had the funds to do real help with mutual aid groups, pay for a friend's housing while they were struggling to afford college, we even bought a (admittedly cheap) car for someone who was going to lose their job because their old car broke
I don't think it is as simple as "once you earn money" or "once you get older". Like you're saying, poor people regardless of ideology often behave in a more leftist way out of necessity. They'll probably stay left or right leaning as they earn more but just have the funds to express it as they go, and when the necessity is gone for republicans they'll stop engaging in community benefit. And while this isn't universal and doesn't make or break someone's leftist status, I feel we're less likely to seek out the kinds of things that earn us high incomes because they're often ideologically unsavory. Then because of working class infighting amongst the left we're additionally less likely to admit to each other in person when we're making bank
Maybe I'm off base or a bit defensive due to my own experience, idk. I feel the others around me who "became republican" the writing was on the wall well before we got more money or older
Generalizations dont apply to every individual. It's just trends.
Research says a lot of people get less charitable when they get more money. But of course that's not true for every person.