Prepared by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity Staff

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.”

• F. Scott Fitzgerald

The people who run America, or at least think they do, live in a bubble of their own construction. They’ve isolated themselves from everyday America’s realities to such a degree their views about what is and what should be happening in this country differ widely from the average American’s.

An analysis of their thinking, conducted for the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, finds that on a variety of economic, social, and political issues, there exists a wide gap between how the top 1% – the Elites – think things should be and how the rest of America looks at them.

Elite thinking, as it’s termed, is under attack – and rightly so – for being out of step with the rest of the country. Below, we highlight some of the profound attitudinal differences between elites and average Americans:

• In a time when most Americans have suffered a loss of real take-home pay, 74% of elites say they are financially better off today than in the past versus 20% of all Americans.
• Nearly six in ten say there is too much individual freedom in America – double the rate of all Americans.
• More than two-thirds (67%) favor rationing of vital energy and food sources to combat the threat of climate change.
• In stark contrast to the rest of America, 70% of the Elites trust the government to “do the right thing most of the time.”
• Two-thirds (67%) say teachers and other educational professionals should decide what children are taught rather than letting parents decide.
• Somewhere between half and two-thirds favor banning things like SUVs, gas stoves, air conditioning, and non-essential air travel to protect the environment.
• About six of ten elites have a favorable opinion of the so-called talking professions—lawyers, lobbyists, politicians, and journalists.
• President Joe Biden enjoys an 84% job approval rating from this group – roughly twice as high as the general public.