Supreme Court's major shift towards the rich mapped out by experts
Written by: Thomas Kika | January 05, 2026 | 01:35 PM ET
An extensive new study from a team of Ivy League economists has uncovered just how much the Supreme Court has shifted towards favoring the wealthier side in any given case, with a New York Times report concluding report concluding that you can "follow the money" to determine how it will in any given case.
The new study, dubbed "Ruling for the Rich," was published on Monday and hailed from the team of Yale's Fiona Scott Morton, Columbia's Andrea Prat and Columbia's Jacob Spitz. Adam Liptak, the leading Supreme Court correspondent for the Times, dug into its findings, noting that "the wealthy have the wind at their backs before the justices," and questioning whether or not they are living up to their oath to "do equal right to the poor and to the rich."
Per Liptak's analysis, the study found that Republican appointees, who have held a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court since 2020 and an overall majority for much longer, are "far more likely than Democratic ones to side with the wealthy," and adding "that the Supreme Court has become deeply polarized in cases pitting the rich against the poor." This is now in sharp contrast to the court of the mid-20th Century, "when appointees of the two parties were statistically indistinguishable" in terms of favoring wealthier parties.
https://www.alternet.org/send/supreme-court-rich/