Judge Glock Why the Working Class Rejected Bidenomics Blue-collar and nonprofessional voters understood that Democratic economics supported college-educated elites.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/blue-collar-workers-reject-bidenomics
Since the election, commentators have pondered why the Biden administration’s left-wing and pro-union economic policies failed to win over working-class Americans. Many argued that Democrats’ cultural radicalism turned off those who would otherwise have embraced Bidenomics. While these voters were certainly angered by Democrats’ leftward turn on issues ranging from crime to gender ideology, they were at least as dismayed by the party’s economic policies. Even beyond the detrimental impact of inflation, nonprofessional Americans saw that the Left’s programs were not taking their concerns into account. Bidenomics was a big-government program, but it aimed to benefit a well-educated elite, not blue-collar workers and those of modest means. These Americans noticed.
Consider President Biden’s student-loan-forgiveness program. Though the Supreme Court struck down his larger plan, by election time Biden had successfully forgiven more than $175 billion in loans—over a tenth of all outstanding federal student debt. These subsidies for the college-educated were his most important executive effort; Vice President Kamala Harris pledged to continue student loan relief if elected.
The so-called Inflation Reduction Act was another bid to appeal to the well-educated. The law devoted hundreds of billions of dollars to support these voters’ climate obsessions and spending habits—for instance, by subsidizing electric vehicles. Far from being a populist giveaway, more than half the act’s estimated costs came from tax incentives to green corporations. This spending undermined workers in traditional hard-hat industries, such as automotives and fossil fuels.
Biden’s policies benefited industries with workers more likely to hold college degrees. The CHIPS and Science Act, for example, directed tens of billions of dollars in grants and subsidies to the semiconductor industry. With 25 percent of its members holding graduate degrees, the semiconductor workforce is much better educated than the general population. The industry estimated that the act will create jobs for tens of thousands of Ph.D., master’s, and bachelor’s degree holders.
Biden also oversaw significant growth in the federal workforce, whose employees are more likely to have attended college: 66 percent of federal employees hold a bachelor’s degree, compared with just 43 percent of private-sector workers. State- and local-government employees are similarly well-educated. Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act directed a whopping $350 billion to these governments, in large part with the goal of protecting and providing “premium pay” to their workers.
The Biden administration hoped that expanding union power would entice the working class, but it didn’t work. One reason why is that today’s unions are not the blue-collar bastions of previous generations. Half of union workers are government employees, and nearly half have bachelor’s degrees. Americans encountering a union today are more likely to find a group dedicated to the interests of white-collar people—professors, graduate students, teachers, doctors, airline pilots, sports professionals, lawyers, or government officials—than to those of manual laborers.
The media may have missed the changing constituencies and priorities of left-wing groups, but non-college-educated voters didn’t. An Economic Innovation Group poll found that such respondents viewed unions less favorably than did college graduates. Another survey, which asked how respondents would prefer to reduce the federal deficit, found that those in the working class showed the strongest preference for government spending cuts rather than tax hikes. The same poll revealed that respondents across income groups showed the greatest support for cutting green programs and higher education/student loan subsidies, two areas that the Biden administration focused most on expanding.
Despite frequently heard claims that the working class was moved by cultural rather than economic issues, New York Times polling revealed that the non-college-educated were more likely than the college-educated to identify the economy and inflation as their top concerns. An Ipsos poll similarly found that those without college degrees were more likely to identify inflation or cost of living as the most important issue facing the country than were those with a bachelor’s degree. They were nearly twice as likely to do so as those with a master’s or higher degree.
Commentators who claim that voters are no longer moved by pocketbook issues are parroting an elite view. These pundits assume that Democrats’ economic policies enjoy popular approval, and that the party’s flagging support from blue-collar workers must be driven by social concerns. On the contrary, pocketbook issues continue to be definitive, but Democrats’ economic agenda is tailored to their new base: the educated managerial class. It’s no surprise that blue-collar voters are looking elsewhere.
Anchor Title
Comments are closed.
