The Franklin L. Burdette/Pi Sigma Alpha Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor the best paper presented at the previous year’s Annual Meeting
Citation from the Award Committee:
The 2025 Franklin L. Burdette/Pi Sigma Alpha Award is given to Matt Brundage for “How Income Segregation Leads Americans to Underestimate Racial Inequality, Reducing Support for Addressing It.”
Brundage’s paper argues that white Americans’ perceptions of racial income inequality are based on their local circumstances, and not the inequality at the national level. Local inequality is often less than national inequality, because of income segregation on top of racial segregation. Residents misapply what they observe in low inequality environments to their perceptions of national level. This misapprehension in turn shapes attitudes about policies aimed at reducing inequality at the national level.
The idea that the local environment would affect perceptions is not novel, but it is also not always easy to demonstrate. Brundage systematically measures racial income inequality at both the county and zip code level, and there is considerable variation. For a significant slice of the white population, black household income in their county is higher than white household income, so respondents in those areas presumably have little direct experience with the inequality that exists nationally. Perceptions of income inequality are lower in low-inequality counties and zip codes. Brundage further shows that this effect is larger where racial groups are more integrated, suggesting that it is exposure to the local context that matters.
Brundage then turns to the effect of these misperceptions, first showing that support for policies aimed at addressing racial inequality is lower for those who underestimate that inequality, and that correcting that underestimate increases support.
The paper is notable for its mix of methods and its thoughtful robustness checks. While an ideal study might randomly assign respondents to communities with varying income inequality, that is not possible. Brundage is clear about the limitations of his observational data, demonstrating the effect across multiple surveys, multiple outcome measures and multiple definitions of local. It is a model for what can be done with the kinds of data that social scientists usually have available.
Matt Brundage is a PhD Candidate in political science at UC Berkeley. He also holds a JD from Yale Law School and is a Civil Justice and Innovation Fellow at Stanford Law School. Matt studies law and inequality in American politics, especially issues related to local governance and unequal access to justice. He also studies attitudes toward racial inequality and income inequality.
APSA thanks the committee members for their service: Dr. Sarah Bruch (Chair) of the University of Delaware, Dr. Sarah Pralle of Syracuse University, and Dr. Hans Noel of Georgetown University