Inequality and Immigration Revisited

Buried in a Bloomberg View item by Megan McArdle about income inequality and the upcoming election is this sentence:

“Of those 100 districts [with the most income inequality], I count just 30 that are represented by Republicans; these are heavily concentrated in Florida and Texas, where immigrants are likely to make up a lot of the bottom. Because many of those immigrants can’t vote, a challenger will have a hard time making a run on the inequality issue in those districts.”

By contrast, McArdle notes that 32 of the 35 Congressional districts with the most inequality are represented by Democrats.FAIR issued a report last year on income inequality that explains the rise in inequality is due in large part to our immigration policy.It appears that trying to use inequality as a campaign issue presents two problems for Democrats. First, many of the districts with the highest inequality already have Democratic representatives, and second, their preferred immigration policy increases inequality.