Redistributive rhetoric is prevalent in politics and campaigns. But do parties deliver equality-enhancing policies once in office? We argue that parties are in general policy seeking, but then opt only for the equality-enhancing policies that inflict less concentrated costs on their voters and on themselves. Factoring in the credit-taking opportunities and risk aversion in light of the varying socio-economic profiles of parties’ electorates, we expect that even egalitarians only selectively pursue equality policies. We test if the extent to which parties emphasize economic equality results in three pathways to (in)equality. We analyse the effect of parties on 1) fiscal redistribution, 2) pre-distribution, and 3) welfare state policies in 12 countries, 1970-2020. Using new data on positions on economic equality obtained through crowd-coding of 850,000 statements, we link data on parties’ equality positions with data on voters, coalitions, and policy choices. We show that the promise of equality (often) remains unfulfilled. Egalitarian parties pursue welfare state compensation (for the middle class) and pre-distribution via minimum wages (for the poor) – but even they rarely pursue fiscal redistribution (from the rich). The reason, we argue, is that even egalitarians choose the policy path of least electoral resistance. The gap between position and policy is thus more pronounced if reforms would inflict concentrated costs on powerful groups, if the electorate is particularly affluent or educated, and when left and right parties find themselves in "mixed" coalitions.