Taking up the tiki torch: Understanding alt-right interest using internet search data.

The alt-right is a white supremacist social movement that operates primarily online. Its broader constituency has not been studied systematically. Participants in white supremacist movements tend to join in response to threats to their social and economic status. Quantitative work suggests they come primarily from working- and lower-middle class backgrounds. Alt-right leadership, however, argues their movement successfully mobilizes a more affluent population of college-educated professionals. In this paper, we examine predictors of county-level Internet search volume for alt-right content. Results indicate that counties with larger percentages of college graduates, of highly educated non-white and immigrant groups, and higher poverty levels for college graduates tend to have a higher search volume for alt-right content. We interpret this as evidence that the alt-right appeals to college-educated whites experiencing real or perceived threats to their economic and social status.

Budgetary Consequences of High Medical Spending Across Age and Social Status: Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This study examines high medical spending among younger, midlife, and older households. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We investigate high medical spending using data from the 2010 through March 2018 Consumer Expenditures Surveys (n = 92,951). We classify and describe high medical spenders relative to others within three age groups (household heads age 25-44, 45-64, and 65+) using finite mixture models and multinomial logistic regression, respectively. We then use hierarchical linear models to estimate the effects of high medical spending on nonmedical spending. RESULTS: Among younger households, high medical spending is positively associated with higher education and increased spending on housing and food. Among older households, high medical spending is associated with lower education and decreased nonmedical spending. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Earlier in the life course, high medical spending is more likely to indicate an investment in future household well-being, while at older ages, high medical spending is likely to indicate medical consumption.

Race and Consumption: Black and White Disparities in Household Spending.

Differences in consumption patterns are usually treated as a matter of preferences. In this article, the authors examine consumption from a structural perspective and argue that black households face unique constraints restricting their ability to acquire important goods and services. Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys, the authors examine racial differences in total spending and in spending on major categories of goods and services (food, transportation, utilities, housing, health care, and entertainment). The authors also capture heterogeneous effects of racial stratification across class by modeling racial consumption gaps across household income levels. The results show that black households tend to have lower levels of total spending than their white counterparts and that these disparities tend to persist across income levels. Overall, these analyses indicate that racial disparities in consumption exist independently of other economic disparities and may be a key unexamined factor in the reproduction of racial inequality.