Research on American framing of health inequality finds that
government health policy reports give more attention to
inequalities by race and ethnicity than by SES. In this paper, I
examine another key site of health inequality
framing—presidential messages. Through quantitative and
qualitative content analysis of ninety years of messages, I find
that presidents mentioned low-income people in more messages and
in more committed tones than racially-oppressed people for the
entire period. The pattern of these mentions also varied by
political party and time.
