THE BROKEN LADDER

Inequality is like gravity in that it is a weighty and pervasive unseen force in daily life. . . . Payne makes a compelling case here for the invisible hand of inequality as a major factor in life—with predictable effects on life expectancy and social behavior—and an influence on political leanings. . . . [A]n engaging interdisciplinary blend of psychology, sociology, and economics that will also appeal to avid readers of politics.

Drawing on experimental psychology, Payne argues that the amount of money you have is not the main determinant of well-being; what matters is how you feel about it. The problem of inequality is relational, not economic. Poverty unquestionably harms health, encourages bad decisions and creates instability. But the key message of Payne’s book is that people who are not deprived may act as if they are—because they feel relatively poor.

The Broken Ladder advances a timely examination by a leading social scientist of the physical, psychological, and moral effects of inequality and the measures that people can take to lessen the harm done by inequality in their own lives.

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The Broken Ladder’s examination of the consequences of inequality—of what it is like to be poor and to feel poor—is as profound as it is revelatory. Keith Payne is a lovely, graceful writer. Replete with gems of research studies, insights, and illuminating examples and implications, this book will change the way you think about your world.

Keith Payne is intent on showing how the problem of inequality operates within the human mind. . . . Beyond its case studies, the memoir portion of Payne’s book is compelling in its own way, and is a counternarrative to J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. The Broken Ladder is a liberal man’s view of his own rise. . . . Payne’s book will make its readers pause to consider the human condition in more depth.

In revealing vignettes, Payne…provides valuable psychological insights into our daily behaviors.

Payne’s writing on how inequality changes people’s decisions, beliefs, and even their health is eye-opening and efficient. . . . The Broken Ladder is a clear and useful book about the gap between the society we have and a society we want. It’s an important step toward understanding how these complicated issues affect our country—alongside books like Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, which takes a more narrative approach to the issue, and Per Molander’s The Anatomy of Inequality, which analyzes it from an economic point of view. Inequality can seem intractable, but these writers are steering us in the right direction. It is no doubt difficult to situate the problem of inequality in such a fraught political landscape, with a President so intent on hurting so many, but keeping an eye on a long-term vision of a more egalitarian society is necessary, too. Keeping Payne’s book on your bedside table is a good place to start.

Keith Payne has written an eye-opening book with profound resonance for the state of our world. We all know that income inequality has dire economic and societal consequences, but The Broken Ladder shows that it has deep psychological impact too, affecting our decision-making, our mood and our health. A thoughtful look — and a rallying cry — into the way our environment shapes us all.

An important and disturbing book to tell us how inequality is affecting Americans psychologically. . . . Payne, who grew up poor in Kentucky hill country, felt the injuries of class as a child. . . . As an adult, he is helping to create a new ‘science of inequality,’ by studying such subjects as the connection between social status and stress . . . and income inequality and life expectancy. . . . It is sobering stuff, and it should make us think about the hidden costs of growing income inequality—and about the messages society is sending to people about where they fit in.

The Broken Ladder is an important, timely, and beautifully written account of how inequality affects us all. Though it surely plagues the poorest and most vulnerable members of society, Keith Payne expertly and engagingly shows that it also touches the wealthy and privileged. Payne marshals the cutting edge in psychology and neuroscience research to explain how inequality influences our political and religious beliefs, how we perform at work, and how we respond to stress and physical threats—and how we can combat its most insidious effects on our lives.

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Relying on dozens of experimental studies, which he describes in vivid and graspable narratives, Payne shows that even in a generally wealthy society, feeling poor relative to your neighbors will harm your health, impair your ability to make long-term plans, push you toward conspiracy theories and ultimately cause you to die sooner than you otherwise would. On measures of well-being, residents of the United States fare worse than residents of countries like Canada, Sweden or Japan, all of which are less wealthy but more equal. . . . Payne wants us to start ‘building a flatter ladder’ between rich and poor and ‘get better at living amid its rungs.’

Many books have been written on the effects of inequality on the economy. In The Broken Ladder, Keith Payne sheds fascinating insight into the pernicious effects of inequality on another complex system: human psychology.

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