Americans see government as focused on the rich

According to a new Huffington Post/YouGov poll, most Americans believe the government helps the rich at the expense of the poor and the middle class.

While only eight percent of respondents believe government does the most to help the middle class, 53 percent consider the rich to be the main beneficiaries of government policy. As HuffPo notes, this represents a wide disparity between what Americans believe the government actually does and what it should do. Forty-nine percent of respondents say they believe government should do more to help the middle class, while only two percent say government should do more to help the wealthy.

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The poll found some partisan division on what the government should be doing. Sixty-six percent of Republicans and 50 percent of independents said the government should do most to help the middle class, while 57 percent of Democrats said they wanted it to do most to help the poor. No more than 3 percent from any party group said the government should do most to help the rich.

Majorities of Democrats and independents who were surveyed said the government now does most to help the rich. Republicans were divided, with 34 percent saying it does most to help the rich and 32 percent saying it does most to help the poor. Less than 10 percent in each group said the government helps the middle class most.