The economy and affective polarization

We review the literature on how affective polarization levels are related to economic conditions including unemployment and income inequality, and to economic policy debates over such issues as tax policy and government intervention in the economy. Both economic conditions and economic policy debates are consistently associated with affective polarization, although over the past decade, polarization is more strongly associated with cultural issue debates over national identity and immigration than with purely economic debates – patterns that we substantiate via empirical analyses that update earlier findings on this topic.