It is an article of faith among
many liberal Democrats that a
substantial percentage of people
who vote for Republicans are
willfully voting against their own
class interests. The Republican Party
has traditionally been the party of capital,
they reason, while the Democratic
Party has long identified itself with the
interests of workers. Most people are
workers. Therefore, a majority of voters
should be Democrats. To win elections,
this argument holds, Democrats
should keep the focus on pocketbook
issues and not let Republicans change
the subject with disingenuous appeals
to blue-collar patriotism or cultural
morality, or simplistic calls for a less
meddlesome government.
Proponents of this logic -- most
notably Thomas Frank, author of What's
The Matter With Kansas? -- prescribe for
Democrats an approach to politics that
might best be called class-interest populism.
Reduced to its essence, it mixes an
anti-corporate economic message
("They are raking in profits while you
are struggling to pay the bills!") with
full-throated support for business regulations
and expansive government protections
for the working class.
Yet the core argument in the liberal
case for this sort of class-interest
populism is deeply flawed in at least
two important respects:
First, it has been well established in
studies of voting behavior that people
no longer choose candidates primarily
on the basis of pocketbook issues, as
they did when the New Deal coalition
dominated national politics. Instead,
now that the industrial-era working
class has been subsumed into a broader
middle class, voters tend to balance personal
experience (such as the party
identification of family and friends), a
sense of self-interest (however defined),
and a concern for society as a whole.
Second, as I demonstrated in an
analysis I conducted for the Progressive
Policy Institute, even if people did vote
primarily on pocketbook issues, the
group that could reasonably be categorized
as having a clear, class-based interest
in supporting the policies most people
associate with the Democratic Party
would probably comprise less than one-quarter
of the electorate.
It is an occupational hazard for
those with big hearts to overestimate
the share of the population that is teetering
near poverty. That is especially
easy to do using yearly income data,
because annual figures can be deceptive.
Graduate students are likely to
report very low incomes for a few years
while they are in school, for example.
But they should not be categorized
with those in true economic distress,
because their condition is only temporary.
Workers who are not in school
have fluctuating incomes, too.
Widespread distress? A single-year
snapshot of Census data can show
almost 40 percent of the U.S. population
making less than $40,000. On
paper, that amounts to widespread
economic distress. It suggests that
something close to a majority of
Americans may have a very direct
personal stake in supporting social
safety net programs for the poor --
the programs that the Democratic
Party is most commonly identified
with in public opinion surveys --
because they themselves might need
government assistance at some point
in their lives.
But because people's incomes fluctuate
from year to year, the more accurate
way to measure their economic wellbeing
is to look at their average earnings
over a longer period, for instance,
15 years. Analyzed that way, the data
show that about 23 percent of adults in
their prime working years have average
family incomes of $40,000 or less. This
is the segment of the population with
the most direct interest in social safety
net programs for people in economic
distress. That's because, in a 15-year
period, people usually experience several
years in which their incomes are 25
percent below or 25 percent above their
longer-term averages. People with 15-
year average incomes of $40,000 or less
will thus typically go through periods
where their incomes dip to the $30,000
range -- the income level at which a
family of three typically becomes eligible
for public assistance programs.
Democrats may protest the suggestion
that they only stand for social
safety net programs for the poor;
they may rightly argue that their
whole social and economic platform
would benefit most Americans. But
the hard truth is that most
Americans simply don't perceive
themselves to have class interests that
strongly align them with one party or
the other. That is, they don't believe
that the direct pocketbook benefits
of either party's policies are so overwhelming
as to outweigh all other
political considerations.
True, on a wide range of issues,
Democratic policies have unquestionably
had a direct impact on
workers' lives -- the 40-hour workweek,
overtime pay, and sick leave, to
name a few. But most of those policies
have long since become widely
accepted. They go largely unchallenged,
even in Republican administrations,
so the Democratic Party
reaps little benefit for having championed
them in the first place, even
though it is still perceived to be the
party of business regulation.
The same is true for America's flagship
retirement security programs,
Social Security and Medicare. Both
were originally Democratic policies,
but, like workplace standards, they
have become such an integral part of
the American social contract that voters
do not definitively credit one political
party for managing them better
than the other.
None of this is meant to suggest that
middle-income voters don't have a legitimate
beef with Republican economic
policies. They certainly do. The Bush
tax cuts have been loaded in favor of the
wealthy, who have also been reaping a
disproportionate share of the economy's
growth, while earnings for individuals
in the middle have stagnated.
Inflation has for the most part been
under control, but soaring health care
premiums, out-of-pocket health costs,
and rising college tuitions are eating up
an increasing share of consumers' disposable
income. As companies react to
fierce global competition by shedding
health and pension costs, there has been
a very real shift of economic risk to
working Americans.
Aspirational outlook. Democrats, of
course, must speak to these worries. But
they must recognize that today's working
Americans have a very different economic
outlook from the blue-collar
workers of yesteryear. As the occupational
structure of the economy has
shifted from manual to office and highskilled
service jobs, workers seem less
likely to feel like victims of the economy
and more likely to view themselves as
beneficiaries of it. Their outlook appears
to have become more aspirational and
less infused with class grievance or
resentment. Instead of demanding specific
workplace protections from government,
they tend to put their faith in
private-sector economic growth.
Democrats should certainly not
conclude from all this that the party
ought to abandon the interests of
people in economic distress. On the
contrary, the Democratic Party
should continue to advance its proud
tradition of expanding economic
opportunity for everyone in society.
Nor should Democrats shy away
from arguing in the coming election
that the Bush administration's economic
policies have been stacked in
favor of the wealthy at a time when
the incomes of wealthy households
are already rising substantially faster
than the incomes of everyone else.
But the party cannot let that critique
be all that it offers. It must also modernize
its message and agenda based
on a sound understanding of American
society as it really is.
Easy answers afforded by an outdated
view of a blue-collar world
inhibit Democrats from developing
imaginative new policies that might
actually help the party build a new
majority coalition for the 21st century.
The great question in the post-industrial
economy is not how government
can restrain business power or insulate
workers from the rigors of competition,
but how to equip workers
with new policy tools for economic
success. If Democrats offer the right
package of proposals to address that
need -- and wrap those proposals in
an optimistic economic message --
there's a good chance voters will
show their approval.
