There seems to be a lot of angst and confusion over recent studies showing that while Americans don't like income inequality and would like income to be more fairly distributed, they don't trust the government to do that redistributing via taxation or government programs for the poor:
Currently, 63 percent think income should be more evenly distributed and only 31 percent think the distribution is fair....
Yet, except among Democratic primary voters, that concern has not translated into increased and widespread support for government action to reduce income inequality. During the Great Recession and its aftermath, overall support for programs to reduce inequality has actually dropped. That suggests a disturbing disconnect between the concern about income inequality and the proposals to reduce it, and could mean that left-wing and liberal populists like Sanders and Warren still have a way to go before they can turn “the great moral issue of our time” into a great political issue.
I'd like to suggest that people are over-complicating this.
There is massive support, upward of 75%, for increasing the federal minimum wage to $12.50 an hour by 2020.
Social Security and Medicare are very popular.
There is suspicion over redistributing income via taxes, and outright opposition to increasing, or even sustaining current levels of funding for welfare or food stamps.
Obamacare is barely at 50% popularity.
What is the difference between these things?
Clearly, the programs that are unambiguously universal are popular, the programs that benefit some unclear "others," but not "you," are unpopular.
Whenever the Republicans (and conservative Democrats) influence the legislation for programs like healthcare, they steer the design away from universality, and toward complication, in which some unknown others are apparently getting the benefits of the program, but not you.
Universality is the key to popular programs. That way everyone knows they are as equally entitled to the benefit as everyone else. Medicare for All, properly funded, would have been a huge hit that the conservatives could never have pried from the cold dead hands of the populace if it had been implemented. Obamacare, with its uncertain benefits, not equally shared by all? Meh, take it away if you like.
Bernie Sanders is right to propose free tuition at public colleges instead of complicated schemes in which the benefits are unclear as to who they go to, and are not universal. Don’t let red herrings like “But you don’t want rich people like Donald Trump’s children to have this benefit!” confuse you. Well, I do want them to go to everyone’s children, even Donald Trump’s — that’s the only way to make sure the benefit is fair to all and therefore likely to be popularly supported.
The people don't trust the government to treat them fairly because they have not been treated fairly by the government in recent memory. Why support increased taxes if you fear they may fall on middle-class you instead of the actual wealthy? Why support government intervention in the healthcare marketplace when it gives you high-cost and rising premiums and high deductibles yet someone else, somewhere, must be benefiting instead of you?
The key is simplicity, transparency, and universality for any program proposed, instead of complicated and obscure programs that benefit someone, somewhere else but not you.
That's how to restore trust in the government to deal with poverty, income inequality, healthcare, and many of the other problems bedeviling the American people.