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 people across party, racial and ethnic, and job lines.
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.
Several years ago I read a letter to the editor in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The author said he was a retired union roofer of residential houses. He noted that up to the late 1980s the vast majority of residential roofing work in the Twin Cities was done by union contractors for (in 2025 inflation-adjusted dollars) around $27/hour plus health insurance and other benefits.
But around 1990 the number of illegal immigrants increased significantly in his area, and union contractors began to lose out on jobs. Over a few years contractors using illegal labor (now $10-$12/hour, no benefits) got almost all the jobs, putting union roofers out of jobs. Those union roofers had been doing "jobs Americans won't do" as the pro-open borders crowd always says.
Whenever college-credentialed Wokesters ask why blue-collar workers vote heavily these days for Trump and other Republicans, tell them this story. There are thousands of similar stories all over the United States.
Like many others, Halpin is losing the forest for the trees. Tariffs are the tree. The forest for Republicans is rebuilding American industries that will generate good paying jobs. Tarrifs are a proxy for that overarching goal. Republicans support tariffs not because they are convinced of their economic utility, but because they are convinced Trump is focused on bringing good paying manufacturing industries back to America, and they'll give him latitude to do that. It's one tool of many Trump advocates to help the free market create new jobs. Deregulation and increasing foreign investment in the economy are other tools to achieve this goal. Will these efforts work? That's to be seen, but it's the focus on free market growth (in the manufacturing and energy industries, for example) that attracts working class Americans. Contrast that with the Democrats. Their approach to increasing working class prosperity is non-market based. It's focused on government policies that are aimed at redistributing wealth by increasing taxes on the wealthy and dedicating such revenues to federal and state programs aimed at subsidizing the poor and working classes. At the same time, Democrats advocate greater regulation of industry to counter "oligargic" and "preditory" practices. There are two fundementally different approaches to increasing working class prosperity. Which approach appeals more to working class voters will drive their allegiance.
***"government policies that are aimed at redistributing wealth by increasing taxes on the wealthy and dedicating such revenues to federal and state programs aimed at subsidizing the poor and working classes."***
Republicans are little different on this point now, since this is essentially what tariffs are--redistributive taxes on businesses to subsidize uncompetitive manufacturing firms and the people who work in manufacturing. In this way, the GOP has implemented one of the largest tax increases on businesses in U.S. history--more than anything the Democrats have ever passed.
Same goes for--
***"At the same time, Democrats advocate greater regulation of industry to counter "oligargic" and "preditory" practices."***
--as protectionism is just a way of regulating industry to counter the practice of importing. Both are attempts to control economic (and especially industrial) behavior, which is the opposite of 'free market' policies.
The biggest difference is that there's very little economic logic to the GOP's new protectionist policies, because, as you said, the GOP doesn't really care much about the utility of the policies themselves--they find it more important to let Trump do as he wants. Trump *is* their policy, which is a serious problem, because it's very clear the man doesn't understand how something as simple as trade deficits work, much less the nuances of international trade as a whole.
TW52 I don't think John was advocating for any particular policy with this article, just telling of an interesting survey.
I also think Trump and his advisors are not so enamored of the free market any more. Tariffs are for sure not letting the free market do it's thing. As the Republican Presidential primary candidate and "new conservative" Marco Rubio says, economies are to benefit people not people to benefit economies.
Perhaps I just missed it , but how is it possible to discuss a working class economic policy with any seriousness, without any mention of 10 million 3rd world laborers, many willing to accept non Western wages, working conditions and legal protections?
A Texas friend tells the story of bidding the painting of a very large, 3 story lake house. The design of the house and the slope of the lot, renders parts of house actually 5 stories above the ground. Why not required by law, the height means scaffolding and safety harnesses have always been used in previous paintings.
He called 3 different painting companies in his area, after viewing examples of their work. The first 2 bids were $50K and $55K , the 3rd just $18K. The owner of the "new" business does not use scaffolding and safety harnesses, but rather a plethora of workers, extra long ladders, along with sprayers and brushes with extenders. A house that size and that tall, one does need Picasso level detail, because the vast majority of the exterior is way above eye level.
Ultimately the homeowner took the middle bid out of liability concerns, but many people will not. How does a painting contractor, compete against other providers, willing to forego regular safety precautions, whose costs make up a large portion of the bid? The short answer is, they do not. At least, not for long.
The first two bids sound lower than here, but then it's Texas. I would also assume both of the higher bids also used illegal labor, but they paid comp and withholding. If you don't pay comp, and withholding, sooner or later a disgruntled worker makes a claim and you are screwed. Also a business needs enough profit to cover all the incidentals. Here all painting is illegal workers except usually one guy who talks to the homeowner and can also speak Spanish. The fumes are pretty bad and no one wants to paint.
I suspect the $18K guy was very new to the business. Often they pay a daily rate and work them 12 hours plus.
Forget about working class, or any class. Think about Americans. Lots of people move through all the income quintiles over their life.
For example, my brother finished high school, worked on the farm, became a mechanic, took courses to qualify as a diesel mechanic doing warrantee work, lost his job, and was unemployed for weeks. He was married with three young children. He began serving former customers. When he got too busy he’d hire another person. Now in his 70’s is looking to sell a very valuable business.
What do Democrats offer that high school graduate just now starting out? A short term fix or a path to a lifetime of opportunity?
Maybe the solution for regaining working class allegiance is to first understand the working class. What I see here is a cafeteria of policy items nearly all of which are magnanimously bestowed upon workers in exchange for their votes. Everyone has their price and somehow clusters and clouds of data points are supposed to convey a true picture of what it would take to bribe that population back into the fold. The majority of these policies are narrow top down approaches that require legal frameworks and bureaucracies to enact and enforce. So jobs are generated but not exactly in the target group. Two of the items stood out for me as directly benefiting the working class, cutting government regulation and enacting a buy American policy for both federal and state purchases. Note that in the former approach government jobs will have to be exchanged for working class jobs as there will be fewer regulators and enforcers. Maybe the better approach should be what can the government stop doing to benefit blue collar workers. Which leads me to a second thought.
The working class is a socioeconomic entity -you can't just address the econ and ignore the socio. Start by affirming affection for our magnificent nation and acknowledge that though flawed we have a unique and vibrant country. Show respect toward our citizens by providing public safety, effective schools, secure borders, affordable energy, and merit based hiring. Lastly acknowledge that there was a massive betrayal of blue collar families by open border policies and swear that will never happen again. Maybe as an act of absolution repeat the kneeling scene in the Senate rotunda but substitute Kente cloth with Carharts and tool belts.
Absolutely agree on banning members of congress from stock speculation and for eliminating the SS tax. With AI on the horizon, the strongest effort possible to move large numbers of people, especially young men, into trades and blue-collar electrician, car repair, plumbing, and other mechanical jobs not suited to AI is a winner. Just no "minimum wage" laws as in Kollyfornia, where it's hurting the economy & sending millions fleeing. Wages dramatically improved for all under Trump 1. Unfortunately, Rutabaga's evil Covid inflation is making it harder now to replicate that.
My grandson tried college for a year, then transitioned into a electrical union program (mixture of classes and paid on-the-job training). Five years later he's a journeyman electrician, husband with stay-at-home wife, father to young child. No student loans. Edited to add: They are on their second house.
Are you seriously claiming the jobs you listed are 'not suited to AI?' Goodness you are in for a rude awakening.
I'd recommend obtaining an elementary of an understanding of a subject--especially something as weighty as the ways AI can be applied to labor automation--before opining on it.
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.
"Oligarchy" rings very hollow when ranted by stock-trading members of congress.
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.
like this-- "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."
"Quirky and somewhat incoherent." Good definition of America for the last 250 years, John!
This does some work explaining how folks ping pong back and forth in voting patterns. It’s a well done study.
Several years ago I read a letter to the editor in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The author said he was a retired union roofer of residential houses. He noted that up to the late 1980s the vast majority of residential roofing work in the Twin Cities was done by union contractors for (in 2025 inflation-adjusted dollars) around $27/hour plus health insurance and other benefits.
But around 1990 the number of illegal immigrants increased significantly in his area, and union contractors began to lose out on jobs. Over a few years contractors using illegal labor (now $10-$12/hour, no benefits) got almost all the jobs, putting union roofers out of jobs. Those union roofers had been doing "jobs Americans won't do" as the pro-open borders crowd always says.
Whenever college-credentialed Wokesters ask why blue-collar workers vote heavily these days for Trump and other Republicans, tell them this story. There are thousands of similar stories all over the United States.
Like many others, Halpin is losing the forest for the trees. Tariffs are the tree. The forest for Republicans is rebuilding American industries that will generate good paying jobs. Tarrifs are a proxy for that overarching goal. Republicans support tariffs not because they are convinced of their economic utility, but because they are convinced Trump is focused on bringing good paying manufacturing industries back to America, and they'll give him latitude to do that. It's one tool of many Trump advocates to help the free market create new jobs. Deregulation and increasing foreign investment in the economy are other tools to achieve this goal. Will these efforts work? That's to be seen, but it's the focus on free market growth (in the manufacturing and energy industries, for example) that attracts working class Americans. Contrast that with the Democrats. Their approach to increasing working class prosperity is non-market based. It's focused on government policies that are aimed at redistributing wealth by increasing taxes on the wealthy and dedicating such revenues to federal and state programs aimed at subsidizing the poor and working classes. At the same time, Democrats advocate greater regulation of industry to counter "oligargic" and "preditory" practices. There are two fundementally different approaches to increasing working class prosperity. Which approach appeals more to working class voters will drive their allegiance.
***"government policies that are aimed at redistributing wealth by increasing taxes on the wealthy and dedicating such revenues to federal and state programs aimed at subsidizing the poor and working classes."***
Republicans are little different on this point now, since this is essentially what tariffs are--redistributive taxes on businesses to subsidize uncompetitive manufacturing firms and the people who work in manufacturing. In this way, the GOP has implemented one of the largest tax increases on businesses in U.S. history--more than anything the Democrats have ever passed.
Same goes for--
***"At the same time, Democrats advocate greater regulation of industry to counter "oligargic" and "preditory" practices."***
--as protectionism is just a way of regulating industry to counter the practice of importing. Both are attempts to control economic (and especially industrial) behavior, which is the opposite of 'free market' policies.
The biggest difference is that there's very little economic logic to the GOP's new protectionist policies, because, as you said, the GOP doesn't really care much about the utility of the policies themselves--they find it more important to let Trump do as he wants. Trump *is* their policy, which is a serious problem, because it's very clear the man doesn't understand how something as simple as trade deficits work, much less the nuances of international trade as a whole.
TW52 I don't think John was advocating for any particular policy with this article, just telling of an interesting survey.
I also think Trump and his advisors are not so enamored of the free market any more. Tariffs are for sure not letting the free market do it's thing. As the Republican Presidential primary candidate and "new conservative" Marco Rubio says, economies are to benefit people not people to benefit economies.
Perhaps I just missed it , but how is it possible to discuss a working class economic policy with any seriousness, without any mention of 10 million 3rd world laborers, many willing to accept non Western wages, working conditions and legal protections?
A Texas friend tells the story of bidding the painting of a very large, 3 story lake house. The design of the house and the slope of the lot, renders parts of house actually 5 stories above the ground. Why not required by law, the height means scaffolding and safety harnesses have always been used in previous paintings.
He called 3 different painting companies in his area, after viewing examples of their work. The first 2 bids were $50K and $55K , the 3rd just $18K. The owner of the "new" business does not use scaffolding and safety harnesses, but rather a plethora of workers, extra long ladders, along with sprayers and brushes with extenders. A house that size and that tall, one does need Picasso level detail, because the vast majority of the exterior is way above eye level.
Ultimately the homeowner took the middle bid out of liability concerns, but many people will not. How does a painting contractor, compete against other providers, willing to forego regular safety precautions, whose costs make up a large portion of the bid? The short answer is, they do not. At least, not for long.
The first two bids sound lower than here, but then it's Texas. I would also assume both of the higher bids also used illegal labor, but they paid comp and withholding. If you don't pay comp, and withholding, sooner or later a disgruntled worker makes a claim and you are screwed. Also a business needs enough profit to cover all the incidentals. Here all painting is illegal workers except usually one guy who talks to the homeowner and can also speak Spanish. The fumes are pretty bad and no one wants to paint.
I suspect the $18K guy was very new to the business. Often they pay a daily rate and work them 12 hours plus.
Forget about working class, or any class. Think about Americans. Lots of people move through all the income quintiles over their life.
For example, my brother finished high school, worked on the farm, became a mechanic, took courses to qualify as a diesel mechanic doing warrantee work, lost his job, and was unemployed for weeks. He was married with three young children. He began serving former customers. When he got too busy he’d hire another person. Now in his 70’s is looking to sell a very valuable business.
What do Democrats offer that high school graduate just now starting out? A short term fix or a path to a lifetime of opportunity?
Maybe the solution for regaining working class allegiance is to first understand the working class. What I see here is a cafeteria of policy items nearly all of which are magnanimously bestowed upon workers in exchange for their votes. Everyone has their price and somehow clusters and clouds of data points are supposed to convey a true picture of what it would take to bribe that population back into the fold. The majority of these policies are narrow top down approaches that require legal frameworks and bureaucracies to enact and enforce. So jobs are generated but not exactly in the target group. Two of the items stood out for me as directly benefiting the working class, cutting government regulation and enacting a buy American policy for both federal and state purchases. Note that in the former approach government jobs will have to be exchanged for working class jobs as there will be fewer regulators and enforcers. Maybe the better approach should be what can the government stop doing to benefit blue collar workers. Which leads me to a second thought.
The working class is a socioeconomic entity -you can't just address the econ and ignore the socio. Start by affirming affection for our magnificent nation and acknowledge that though flawed we have a unique and vibrant country. Show respect toward our citizens by providing public safety, effective schools, secure borders, affordable energy, and merit based hiring. Lastly acknowledge that there was a massive betrayal of blue collar families by open border policies and swear that will never happen again. Maybe as an act of absolution repeat the kneeling scene in the Senate rotunda but substitute Kente cloth with Carharts and tool belts.
Absolutely agree on banning members of congress from stock speculation and for eliminating the SS tax. With AI on the horizon, the strongest effort possible to move large numbers of people, especially young men, into trades and blue-collar electrician, car repair, plumbing, and other mechanical jobs not suited to AI is a winner. Just no "minimum wage" laws as in Kollyfornia, where it's hurting the economy & sending millions fleeing. Wages dramatically improved for all under Trump 1. Unfortunately, Rutabaga's evil Covid inflation is making it harder now to replicate that.
My grandson tried college for a year, then transitioned into a electrical union program (mixture of classes and paid on-the-job training). Five years later he's a journeyman electrician, husband with stay-at-home wife, father to young child. No student loans. Edited to add: They are on their second house.
It can be done.
Are you seriously claiming the jobs you listed are 'not suited to AI?' Goodness you are in for a rude awakening.
I'd recommend obtaining an elementary of an understanding of a subject--especially something as weighty as the ways AI can be applied to labor automation--before opining on it.