‘Different worlds’: Americans see a huge divide between haves and have-nots, new poll shows

Politics News‘Different worlds’: Americans see a huge divide between haves and have-nots, new poll showsA national NBC News poll finds 81% of Americans say there is more that divides than unites the wealthy and those who aren’t wealthy.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00A person holds a sign at a protest in Tampa, Fla., in 2021.Gerardo Mora / Getty Images fileShareAdd NBC News to GoogleJune 18, 2026, 5:00 AM EDTBy Bridget Bowman, Annelise Hanson, Lauren Zola and Ben KamisarMost Americans are optimistic that the country is broadly more united than divided, and they feel that’s true even across some contentious dividing lines like race and gender. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.But that optimism does not extend to what Americans see as a broad gulf between the wealthy and those who are not wealthy, according to a new national NBC News poll. A majority of Americans (54%) say most Americans share the same core values but disagree about policies and issues, while 44% say most Americans have fundamentally different core values, according to the survey, which was sponsored by More Perfect, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing democracy. There are notable splits along some lines, including age and geography. But even those are overshadowed by the overwhelming shares who see sizable divisions between Republicans and Democrats (80%) and between the wealthy and the not wealthy (81%).The view that the country is divided by economic class spans different age groups, political parties and races. And several voters who participated in the survey and spoke with NBC News saw the wealthy as living in a different reality while they struggle to make ends meet. “We live in completely different worlds,” said Josh Webb, a 30-year-old Democrat from Tennessee who works in manufacturing. Wealthy people “don’t have empathy right now because they’re not suffering how other people are su...