This review of peer-reviewed academic research published since 2008, and selected campaign literature, answers 4 questions on the effects of framing on the public's understanding of, and engagement around, wealth inequality:

1. How is the problem of wealth inequality communicated?
2. What do we know about the effects of textual and visual frames on public perceptions of wealth inequality?
3. How does the public understand wealth inequality?
4. What are the barriers to wealth inequality gaining public and political salience?

Key characteristics, trends, intersections and relationships given salience by the academic literature and by campaigning organisations were identified. The review underpins the report Changing the narrative on wealth inequality.

Escalating wealth inequality is causing social and environmental harm. Although it is high and rising, public concern isn't keeping pace. Changing how wealth inequality is talked about could help to raise public concern and build political pressure to act.

We reviewed the literature on the framing of economic inequality. Framing describes a process of giving some ‘aspects of a perceived reality’ more prominence in a way that promotes a particular problem definition, cause, moral evaluation, and treatment (Entman, 1993). The report blends insights from this review of literature with suggestions for how they might be used to change how we talk about wealth inequality to increase its salience.

The review found that there is no shared public understanding of wealth inequality as a social problem. While there is strong public support for some forms and levels of wealth, the public is also aware of its potential harms in certain contexts (Davis et al., 2020). This lack of settled understanding is an opportunity. There is plenty of space for defining what the problem actually is (extreme wealth) and for making it clear what isn’t the problem (‘ordinary’ wealth) (Hecht et al., 2022a).

Another striking finding was the potency of what are termed ‘system-justifying beliefs’ such as meritocracy. They tend to make people believe not only that the status quo is fair and legitimate, but that individual agency, rather than the force of political and economic structures, is the primary cause of individuals’ economic outcomes at both ends of the spectrum. Whether your work seeks to challenge and change these system-justifying beliefs, or to simply acknowledge them and work within the constraints they set, being aware of the degree to which they tend to legitimise even very high differences in wealth ownership is important.

Different kinds of frame, advantage/disadvantage, social failure/personal failure, were found to have a significant effect on shaping the understanding of, and response to, economic inequality. Can we use what we know about the effects of these frames on preference formation to delegitimise the economic status quo and to increase the salience of wealth inequality? Our report found plenty of room for new work in this area, especially in harnessing the power of images more effectively.

Much of the experimental work in the literature used opinions about wealth tax as a barometer to gauge public appetite for redistribution. This raised an interesting issue. The role that the additional revenue from a wealth tax could play in stabilising public service provision and arresting the slide towards ever-deepening poverty is not in question. But wealth inequality is more than a revenue issue: it is a deep social and economic justice issue. If we define it in this more expansive way, then wealth tax becomes one of many other potential solutions. We create space for thinking how justice might be delivered diffusely: taxing wealth at the top is surely a priority, but justice might need to be built productively through, for example, supporting the development of new community or public assets, or through the re-commoning of previously privatised national assets.

This report, and the underpinning review of literature, are offered as a means of sparking new conversations about the economy, wealth, and wealth inequality with a view to engaging the public and building political pressure to act...