Many good people across the political spectrum are earnestly trying to create a coherent, comprehensible, and politically attractive economic agenda for working-class voters that could unite Americans across party, racial and ethnic, and job lines. But it’s difficult, precisely because these same dividing lines inhibit agreement on the exact policies and priorities that a majority of working-class voters would support to help improve their own financial prospects and bolster the national economy.
Some workers like tariffs on imports and “buy American” provisions; others do not. Some workers want to significantly raise the minimum wage; others are opposed to the idea. Some workers support industrial policy and infrastructure investment; others less so. How exactly should Democrats and Republicans, or different labor unions and non-union organizations, make sense of these policy conflicts to produce a viable working-class economic agenda?
To explore these and other questions, TLP’s friends at the Center for Working-Class Politics, in conjunction with the Labor Institute and the Labor Action Research Network (LEARN) at Rutgers, recently released a massive study of public opinion on economic and other matters in four Rust Belt states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
Originally, I was going to focus this column on their findings about the need for independent candidates to run on economically nationalist and culturally moderate agendas outside of the confines of the Democratic Party, something I’ve written about numerous times over the years. But reading the study again, the most fascinating part of the research involves testing of 25 different economic policies using a survey technique called maximum difference scaling (MaxDiff) that measures relative support for each of the policies through random clusters of comparisons (with each policy presented the same number of times across the entire survey) rather than using a straight support or oppose or other categorical format that often produces high levels of agreement but no understanding of priorities.
The full list of policies includes a mix of measures on job quality, cost of living, corporate power, social welfare measures, and others that draw from an ideologically diverse mix of pro-market ideas, government-led solutions, and “predistribution” policies that seek to reduce inequalities before they occur through direct market interventions. Policies that emerge in the top tier are those that voters prefer the most over others, while those at the bottom are preferred the least compared to others.
The table below shows the results of the MaxDiff testing based on partisanship. As you can see, there is a wide divergence in the policy priorities that animate members of different parties. For example, the Trump administration’s tariff agenda is in the top two tiers of support for Republicans but the bottom two tiers for independents and Democrats. Conversely, support for raising the minimum wage to $20 per hour, indexed to inflation, is in the top tier of support for Democrats but only in the middle tier for independents and in the bottom tier for Republicans. Increased taxation on the “super wealthy and corporations” emerges in the top tier for independents and Democrats but lands towards the bottom for Republicans.
In contrast, there are five policies with more widespread agreement across party lines, but they are an odd mix of redistributive and punitive measures, including tax credits for businesses for job training, banning members of Congress and their families from owning stock, stopping price gouging, eliminating taxes on Social Security income, and capping prescription drug prices. (When you examine the results by job type rather than partisanship, similar patterns emerge on most of these top ideas.)
You can see the problem here. Currently, neither party nor any independent leader or major labor organization supports an agenda like this because it’s kind of quirky and somewhat incoherent.
As these results highlight, there really is no politically manageable working-class economic agenda that people of various employment and partisan backgrounds would currently support. The working-class economic agenda of Trump and Republicans is tariffs and new trade deals coupled with reductions in taxes and deregulation. The working-class economic agenda of Democrats is clean energy industrial policy and protection of the existing safety net coupled with various threats to regulate business and raise taxes. Neither of these partisan approaches enjoys consistent support with members of the other party—or with independents.
So, unlike in earlier eras of advancements for American workers, there isn’t a tangible working-class economic agenda to promote across the divides (e.g., labor rights, workplace protections, public works projects, and various social insurance measures that defined the New Deal and Great Society eras). Given this situation, it’s little wonder that much of contemporary politics is focused on culture war issues. Those lines are clearly delineated for voters. In contrast, the economic debate today is a hodgepodge of incompatible ideas with no unifying vision or concrete political representation. Republicans and Trump will try to consolidate workers behind his tariff and tax cut focus, while Democrats will decry “oligarchy” and fight for wage increases and health care provisions. Workers will support some but not all of these ideas.
More likely, both parties will face stiff resistance from working-class Americans and shifting allegiances if nothing improves for them and their families in terms of high-paying work, affordable basics, a nice quality of life, and opportunities to save and build wealth.
The lack of clarity on economics isn’t the fault of the authors of this study or other groups trying to develop a working-class agenda. This is important and well-intentioned policy development. The lack of a tangible and easily articulated working-class economic agenda merely reflects the confusion of modern politics, rising distrust of elites and major institutions in society, and the competing interests of different groups of American workers based on job types and political views.
The party or movement that figures out how best to navigate these competing class interests will enjoy growing and sustained support—perhaps a tall order in today’s political environment but still a critical project worth pursuing to help ensure the well-being of all American workers.
The other day while playing with wealth distribution numbers to see just how wealthy I am I noticed a funny thing. The top 1% have about a third of wealth, the 9% of families below them have another third of the wealth, and the 40% below them have about another third of the wealth. The bottom half of households have nothing. Something ain't right and it's not just the 1%.
The only time I've seen wages and conditions improve for that bottom 50% of workers is during early covid. The border was almost closed, many people had left and gone south because all the service industries were shut down. Supply and demand is simple, and true. The one thing I don't see on this poll of Center for Working Class whatevers is illegal immigration.
I'm not a genius like all of these NGOs doing studies but if you bring 10 million low wage workers into an economy I'd think there might just maybe be a corresponding downward pressure on wages, upwards pressure on rents, and some real busy emergency rooms being used as primary care.
Great data. It does make me think that iit will be hard to win on what you call economic messages. I do think the developers of this survey may have missed how immigration plays out as an economic issue. However putting that aside my takeaway is that whichever party engenders trust will win and then they have 4 years to prove their economic plans help. If they don’t and more importantly if they lose trust and they are at best the same they are going to lose. I believe this is why cultural issues are so important. They are easier to quickly show the party is trustworthy than most economic issues unless you go over a cliff on economic ones like Biden and the Democratic Party. When you name a bill inflation reduction only to have inflation go through the roof you are pretty much …. Trust is really simple. You say what you are going to do, you do it and whatever you have done has at least some positive impact on the people who elected you.