From the article: Realsearchers compared enacted policies to “the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (9

From the article: Realsearchers compared enacted policies to “the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (90th percentile), and large special interests groups.” Researchers did not evaluate legislation on its merits. Indeed, they did not evaluate the legislation at all. They rely on work done by Gilens. Gilens assembled a dataset of survey results about support for legislation in which the income of the respondents is known. See Testing Theiretical Predictions section of the full reseach article: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B/core-reader https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/62327F513959D0A304D48... Economic-elite is defined as individuals with income at or above the top 10%. Assume less. Read more.