The Working-Class Push for Progressive Economic Policies

The following article by Alex Rowell and David Madland was posted on the Center for American Progress Progressive Action Fund website April 17, 2017:

Workers tour a construction site in Boston, May 2017. Credit: Getty/David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe

Pundits and policymakers are increasingly talking about the importance of reaching out to working-class Americans. Unfortunately, discussions of the working class are too often based on assumptions and stereotypes rather than evidence about who makes up the working class and what they want. Previous research from the Center for American Progress Action Fund showed that the working class—defined as the members of the labor force without a four-year college degree—is much more diverse than it is typically portrayed: It consists of large numbers of women, workers of color, and service-sector workers as well as the often-discussed white men in goods-producing industries.1

This issue brief examines workers’ opinions on economic policy using data from four major nationally representative surveys.2 Research for this brief shows that working-class whites, blacks, and Hispanics want elected officials to make the economy work for better for them, as do college-educated workers. Workers broadly support, for example, increasing the minimum wage; broadening access to paid leave; passing equal pay legislation; expanding access to health care and retirement benefits; making college more affordable; regulating banks; and instituting higher taxes on the wealthy. 3

There are some political issues—most notably views on racial discrimination and immigration—where workers’ views diverge along race and class lines. For example, a significant percentage of white working-class workers harbor racial resentment and support anti-immigrant policies such as banning immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.7 Politicians seeking to scapegoat people of color and immigrants for American economic woes could harness and amplify these views.

Of course, this does not mean that progressives should compromise their support for policies that counter systemic inequities and help ensure fair treatment for people of color and immigrants. While the economy is not working well for many workers—especially those without college degrees—nonwhite workers in the working class often fare even worse than their white counterparts due to long-lasting structural disadvantages.8 In 2017, just 2.5 percent of Americans with a four-year college degree or more were unemployed.9 The average unemployment rate among white workers with less than a college degree was 4.6 percent in 2017.10 For black and Hispanic members of the working class, the unemployment rate was 9.1 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively.11 Progressive economic policies are especially key for these workers.

The bottom line from the findings of this analysis is that supporting a bold economic reform agenda does not involve trading off the support of one group of workers for another. Workers—especially those without four-year college degrees—face real economic challenges.12 They also support progressive economic policies that would make the U.S. economy work better for the working class. Broad and proud advocacy for these policies can serve to unite workers across class and race.

Workers support policies to raise wages and improve working conditions

Considering that many workers struggle to get ahead in today’s economy, it is no surprise that they support policies that serve to raise wages. People at the top of the income distribution have pulled further away from working- and middle-class families: Despite decades of economic growth, the typical worker brings home roughly the same hourly wage as they did 40 years ago in inflation-adjusted terms.13 Institutions that serve to protect workers’ economic interests in both the workplace and political arena—namely, labor unions—have been under attack from corporate interests and state lawmakers for decades.14 Today, just 6.5 percent of private-sector workers are union members15—meaning that fewer workers have the power to demand and receive higher wages and benefits than in the past—even though the majority of Americans approve of labor unions.16 And the benefits of collective bargaining are often highest for workers without a college education  and for workers of color.17

Another labor market institution that protects fewer workers than in the past is the federal minimum wage, which has remained stagnant at $7.25 per hour since 2009. While 29 states and the District of Columbia have established higher state minimum wages than the federal minimum wage, nearly 4 in 10 workers live in states where the minimum wage remains $7.25.18

Ending the nine-year slide in many minimum-wage workers’ purchasing power by raising the federal minimum wage is broadly popular among workers. Data from the ANES found that 61 percent of college-educated workers and 58 percent of white working-class workers support raising the minimum wage.19 Black and Hispanic members of the working class show even higher levels of support, with 81 percent and 68 percent in favor of increasing the minimum wage, respectively.20

A similar pattern of support for increasing the minimum wage is found in data from the 2016 CCES. College-educated workers and white working-class workers expressed roughly the same level of support—65 percent and 64 percent, respectively.21 Overall working-class support was higher than that of college-educated workers due to overwhelming support from black, Hispanic, and AAPI members of the working class—90 percent, 81 percent, and 80 percent, respectively.22

Workers are also broadly supportive of policies to make it easier for parents to participate in the labor market and combat the gender pay gap.

The Family and Medical Leave Act, which passed more than 25 years ago, provided workers for the first time with unpaid job-protected family and medical leave to take time off for the birth or adoption of a new child or to care for their own illness or that of a loved one. Yet only 6 in 10 workers have access to this unpaid leave.23 In addition, the United States is the only advanced economy that does not have some form of guaranteed parental leave policy.24

Today, just 15 percent of civilian workers—and just 6 percent of low-wage workers—have access to paid family leave.25 As a result, working families lose an estimated $20.6 billion in wages each year from being forced to quit working or reduce their work hours—and this does not take into account the potential long-term consequences of unemployment.26 Data from the ANES show that members of the working class are broadly in support of expanding access to paid leave, with support across racial and ethnic groups ranging from 63 percent of Hispanics to 69 percent of whites to 72 percent of black workers. 27 Support from college-educated workers stands at 73 percent. 28

Similarly, there is broad support for policies to ensure that women receive pay that is equal to men’s. Equal pay for equal work is a key tenet of any commitment to equality and fairness. Overall, women only make 80 cents for every dollar made by men.29 The pay gap between men and women exists at all education levels30, and the pay of women of color—more so than that of white women—falls even further behind the pay of white men.31

These pay disparities undermine women’s and families’ economic security. Therefore, it is no surprise that policies to close the gender pay gap are broadly popular across education level and race. The vast majority of white, black, and Hispanic workers without a college degree—as well as the majority of college-educated workers—support equal-pay policies.32 While there are laws on the books that are intended to ban pay discrimination, they have not been updated as necessary to ensure they properly govern today’s workplaces.33 In order to protect workers, policymakers should consider policies that hold employers accountable for inequitable practices and that ensure transparency, such as those banning prior salary information requests in the hiring process or requiring the inclusion of salary ranges on job postings.34

Workers support investing in health care, retirement, and education and regulating Wall Street

In addition to showing broad support for policies to improve workers’ wages and benefits, data clearly show that workers back government action to ensure Americans have health care and a secure retirement; to make public college more affordable; and to safeguard the U.S. financial system.

The vast majority of workers believe that it is the government’s responsibility to provide health care for those who are sick. According to the 2016 GSS, more than 4 in 5 college-educated workers and members of the white working class stated that the government “definitely should” or “probably should” be responsible for providing health care.35 Black and Hispanic members of the working class are even more likely to have this view than members of the white working class.36

Despite broad public support for government-provided health care, however, the current congressional majority has proposed massive cuts to health care programs. Its fiscal year 2018 budget resolution proposed $1.8 trillion in cuts to health programs—slashing Medicaid, Medicare, and Affordable Care Act subsidies.37 And while this budget did not threaten Social Security retirement benefits, many conservative policymakers are making it clear that Social Security will be soon targeted for cuts. 38

Yet when workers are asked if they prefer cutting or increasing spending on government health care programs and retirement programs, they predominantly want increased investment—not cuts. Seventy-one percent of workers without college degrees would prefer the government spend more on health care, and 67 percent of these workers would prefer increased spending on retirement programs as well. College-educated workers similarly prefer boosted spending, with 63 percent supporting more health care spending and 52 percent supporting more spending on retirement benefits. Polling from GBA Strategies and the Center for American Progress this year similarly shows broad-based opposition to cuts to programs that protect Americans’ living standards, including Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.39 This polling also found that white, black, and Hispanic members of the working class oppose so-called work requirements in Medicaid that would allow states to take Medicaid away from workers who are not currently employed or participating in a government-approved training program.40

Workers also support policies to make public college more affordable. The rising cost of higher education has made it more difficult for individuals to finish college. Driven in part by declining state spending on higher education in recent years, the average tuition for a public four-year college grew by 289 percent—even after adjusting for inflation—from 1980 to 2014.41 While community college tuition has not grown as fast, many students there struggle to afford basic necessities such as food.42 The majority of workers support policies to address this issue and to increase access to higher education by providing free tuition programs at public colleges to families making less than $125,000 per year.43 Workers of all races without college degrees are more likely to support this policy than workers who currently have a college education.44

While there has been a degree of bipartisan support for bank deregulation in the current session of Congress45, workers are united across racial and class lines against reducing bank regulation. Among those without college degrees, 46 percent of workers support more banking regulation and 12 percent favor less; views are similar regardless of race.46 College-educated workers are similarly opposed to reducing regulations on banks. This shows that principled opposition to bills such as the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act—which rolls back enhanced regulations from the Dodd-Frank Act for 25 of the 38 largest banks in the United States—would be both a political winner and good policy.47

There is broad and overwhelming support for raising taxes on the rich

Regardless of race or education levels, raising taxes on high-income earners is very popular among workers. According to 2016 AVS data, the majority of working-class workers of all races, as well as college-educated workers, support instituting a new tax on those making more than $250,000 annually.48 Members of the white working class are the most supportive, with 74 percent in favor of raising taxes on these taxpayers.49

Data from the ANES similarly show broad support for raising taxes on the highest earners. More than 3 in 5 white, black, and Hispanic workers in the working class favor raising taxes on those making more than $1 million annually.50 College-educated workers agree, with 69 percent in favor of such a tax increase and only 16 percent in opposition. 51

Despite this broad support for raising taxes on the rich, in 2017, policymakers chose to do the opposite. President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which passed into law on Decemer 22 despite unified Democratic opposition. Under the TCJA, the average taxpayer making more than $1 million annually will receive a $69,660 tax cut—more than 122 times more than the average tax cut received by families earning between $40,000 and 50,000.52 In 2027—once the bill’s individual tax cuts expire and its corporate tax cuts remain—members of the top 1 percent will take home 83 percent of the benefits.53 Policymakers should keep in mind the massive popularity of raising taxes on the wealthy when considering future changes to the tax code.

Conclusion

Many Americans believe that the economy is not working well for them. Indeed, nearly 80 percent of the working class thinks the economy unfairly favors the wealthy.54 Americans without four-year college degrees, regardless of race or ethnicity, support policies to ensure that their jobs pay more and provide necessary benefits; to increase financial regulation and spending on health, retirement, and education; and to raise taxes on the wealthy. And these views are generally held by college-educated workers as well.

To be sure, some members of the white working class hold views on race and immigration issues that enable workers to be more easily divided by politicians who stoke racial resentment and xenophobia. Promoting a strong progressive economic agenda, therefore, may not be a panacea to win the support of all workers. But the results are clear: The majority of workers—whether white, black, or Hispanic, and whether college-educated or not—want politicians to push for progressive economic policies.

Alex Rowell is a policy analyst for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. David Madland is a senior fellow and the senior adviser to the American Worker Project at CAP Action.

Endnotes

  1. Alex Rowell, “What Everyone Should Know About America’s Diverse Working Class” (Washington: Center for American Progress Action Fund, 2017), available at https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/reports/2017/12/11/169303/everyone-know-americas-diverse-working-class/. ↩
  2. American National Election Studies, “ANES 2016 Time Series Study,” available at http://www.electionstudies.org/studypages/anes_timeseries_2016/anes_timeseries_2016.htm (last accessed December 2017); Authors’ analysis of 2016 data from Tom W. Smith and others, “General Social Survey” (Chicago: NORC at the University of Chicago, 2017), available at http://gss.norc.org/; Data from Betsy Cooper and others, “The Divide Over America’s Future: 1950 or 2050? Findings from the 2016 American Values Survey” (Washington: Public Religion Research Institute, 2016), available at https://www.prri.org/research/poll-1950s-2050-divided-nations-direction-post-election/; Stephen Ansolabehere and Brian F. Schaffner, “CCES Common Content, 2016”(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Dataverse, 2017), available at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/GDF6Z0&version=4.0.  ↩
  3. Sean McElwee finds this is similarly true when samples are not limited to those in the labor force. See Sean McElwee, “Why Are Democrats So Afraid of Taxes?”, The Outline, January 4, 2018, available at https://theoutline.com/post/2845/why-are-democrats-so-afraid-of-taxes?zd=1&zi=rnzew3jc. ↩
  4. American National Election Studies, “ANES 2016 Time Series Study”; Smith and others, “General Social Survey, 2016”; Cooper and others, “The Divide Over America’s Future: 1950 or 2050? Findings from the 2016 American Values Survey”; Ansolabehere and Schaffner, “CCES Common Content, 2016.” ↩
  5. Michael Hout, “How Class Works in Popular Conception: Most Americans Identify with the Class Their Income, Occupation, and Education Implies for Them” (Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley Survey Research Center, 2007), available at http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/rsfcensus/papers/Hout-ClassIDJan07.pdf. ↩
  6. For additional discussion of using education to identify members of the working class, see Rowell, “What Everyone Should Know About America’s Diverse Working Class.” ↩
  7. For example, according to the 2016 AVS, 64 percent of working-class white workers agree that “discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities,” with 31 percent “completely” agreeing. This is a less prominent belief among college-educated white workers: 40 percent of college-educated whites feel the same, with 12 percent “completely” agreeing. Thirty-three percent of working-class blacks and 47 percent of working-class Hispanics agree. Similarly in the AVS, 59 percent of working-class white workers favor “temporarily banning Muslims,” compared with just 31 percent of college-educated voters, 30 percent of black working-class workers, and 40 percent of Hispanic working-class workers. However, there is evidence from the CCES that there is growing support among members of the white working class for comprehensive immigration reform. While just 30 percent of the white working class supported granting legal status to “illegal immigrants” who have been employed and paid taxes for at least three years in 2010, this share rose to 47 percent in 2016. A majority of working-class black, Hispanic, and Asian American or Pacific Islander workers support granting legal status to these immigrants, as do college-educated workers. For more information, see Cooper and others, “The Divide Over America’s Future: 1950 or 2050? Findings from the 2016 American Values Survey” and Ansolabehere and Schaffner, “CCES Common Content, 2016.” ↩
  8. Valerie Wilson and William M. Rodgers III, “Black-white wage gaps expand with rising wage inequality” (Washington: Economic Policy Institute, 2016), available at https://www.epi.org/publication/black-white-wage-gaps-expand-with-rising-wage-inequality/; Eileen Patten, “Racial, gender wage gaps persist in U.S. despite some progress,” Pew Research Center Fact Tank, July 1, 2016, available at http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/01/racial-gender-wage-gaps-persist-in-u-s-despite-some-progress/.  ↩
  9. Authors’ calculations using monthly data from Steven Ruggles and others, “Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, 2015 Current Population Survey for Social, Economic and Health Research: 1-year estimates,” available at https://cps.ipums.org/ (last accessed March 2018). ↩
  10. Ibid. ↩
  11. Ibid. ↩
  12. For example, prime-age working-class workers are more than twice as likely to report being “extremely” or “very” worried about their financial situation as prime-age college-educated workers. This degree of economic anxiety is reported by 32 percent of white working-class workers, 40 percent of black working-class workers, and 44 percent of Hispanic working-class workers. See Rowell, “What Everyone Should Know About America’s Diverse Working Class.” ↩
  13. Authors’ calculation based on data from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, “Average Hourly Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees: Total Private (AHETPI),” available at https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/AHETPI (last accessed September 2017); Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, “Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items (CPIAUCSL),” available at https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CPIAUCSL(last accessed September 2017). ↩
  14. Gordon Lafer, The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017); David Madland and Danielle Corley,” Unions Are Among the Very Few Interest Groups that Represent the Middle Class” Center for American Progress, November 14, 2014, available at https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/news/2014/11/14/101163/unions-are-among-the-very-few-interest-groups-that-represent-the-middle-class-2/. ↩
  15. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Union Members Summary,” available at https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm(last accessed March 2018). ↩
  16. Art Swift, “Labor Union Approval Best Since 2003, at 61%,” Gallup,August 30, 2017, available at http://news.gallup.com/poll/217331/labor-union-approval-best-2003.aspx. ↩
  17. David Madland and Alex Rowell, “Unions Help the Middle Class, No Matter the Measure” (Washington: Center for American Progress Action Fund, 2016), available at https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/reports/2016/06/09/139074/unions-help-the-middle-class-no-matter-the-measure/.   ↩
  18. Janelle Jones and David Cooper, “State minimum wage increases helped 4.3 million workers, but federal inaction has left many more behind,” Economic Policy Institute, January 9, 2017, available at https://www.epi.org/publication/state-minimum-wage-increases-helped-4-3-million-workers-but-federal-inaction-has-left-many-more-behind/. ↩
  19. Authors’ analysis using American National Election Studies, “ANES 2016 Time Series Study.” ↩
  20. Ibid. ↩
  21. Authors’ analysis using Stephen Ansolabehere and Brian Schaffner, “CCES Common Content, 2016.” ↩
  22. Ibid. ↩
  23. Sarah Jane Glynn and Danielle Corley, “The Cost of Work-Family Policy Inaction” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2016), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2016/09/22/143877/the-cost-of-inaction/. ↩
  24. Ibid. ↩
  25. Low-wage workers are defined as those in the lowest 25 percent of workers when ranked by wages. See U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Employee Benefits Survey: Leave benefits: Access,” available at https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ownership/civilian/table32a.htm (last accessed March 2018). ↩
  26. Glynn and Corley, “The Cost of Work-Family Policy Inaction”; For further information about the long-term impact of leaving paid employment, see Michael Madowitz, Alex Rowell, and Katie Hamm, “Calculating the Hidden Cost of Interrupting a Career for Child Care” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2016), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/reports/2016/06/21/139731/calculating-the-hidden-cost-of-interrupting-a-career-for-child-care/. ↩
  27. Authors’ analysis using American National Election Studies, “ANES 2016 Time Series Study.” ↩
  28. Ibid. ↩
  29. Kevin Miller, “The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap” (Washington: American Association of University Women, 2018), available at https://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/. ↩
  30. Jessica Schieder and Elise Gould, “’Women’s work’ and the gender pay gap” (Washington: Economic Policy Institute, 2016), available at http://www.epi.org/publication/womens-work-and-the-gender-pay-gap-how-discrimination-societal-norms-and-other-forces-affect-womens-occupational-choices-and-their-pay/. ↩
  31. Kaitlin Holmes and others, “Rhetoric vs. Reality: Equal Pay” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2016), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2016/11/07/292175/rhetoric-vs-reality-equal-pay/. ↩
  32. Authors’ analysis using American National Election Studies, “ANES 2016 Time Series Study.” ↩
  33. Holmes and others, “Rhetoric vs. Reality: Equal Pay.” ↩
  34. Jocelyn Frye, “Next Steps for Progress on Equal Pay” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2016), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2016/04/12/135267/next-steps-for-progress-on-equal-pay/. ↩
  35. Authors’ analysis using data from Smith and others, “General Social Survey, 2016.” ↩
  36. Ibid. ↩
  37. Joel Friedman and others, “Proposed Senate Budget is Likely to Leave Millions of Americans Worse Off” (Washington: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2017), available at https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/proposed-senate-budget-is-likely-to-leave-millions-of-americans-worse-off.   ↩
  38. Peter Weber, “GOP senator says tax cuts must be followed by ‘structural changes to Social Security and Medicare,’” The Week, November 30, 2017, available at http://theweek.com/speedreads/740454/gop-senator-says-tax-cuts-must-followed-by-structural-changes-social-security-medicare. ↩
  39. John Halpin and Karl Agne, “Ensuring Basic Living Standards for All” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2018), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/poverty/reports/2018/03/07/447412/ensuring-basic-living-standards/. Poll data on file with author. ↩
  40. Halpin and Agne, “Ensuring Basic Living Standards for All”; Katherine Gallagher Robbins and Rachel West, “Trump’s Medicaid Work Requirements Could Put At Least 6.3 Million Americans at Risk of Losing Health Care,” Center for American Progress, January 12, 2018, available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/poverty/news/2018/01/12/444953/trumps-medicaid-work-requirements-put-least-6-3-million-americans-risk-losing-health-care/. ↩
  41. Carmel Martin, Andy Green, and Brendan Duke, eds.,“Raising Wages and Rebuilding Wealth” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2016), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2016/09/08/143585/raising-wages-and-rebuilding-wealth/. ↩
  42. Sara Goldrick-Rab, Jed Richardson, and Anthony Hernandez, “Hungry and Homeless in College: Results from a National Study of Basic Needs Insecurity in Higher Education” (Madison, WI: Wisconsin HOPE Lab, 2017), available at http://www.wihopelab.com/publications/Hungry-and-Homeless-in-College-Report.pdf. ↩
  43. Authors’ analysis of data from Cooper and others, “The Divide Over America’s Future: 1950 or 2050? Findings from the 2016 American Values Survey.” ↩
  44. Ibid. ↩
  45. Alan Rappeport, “Democrats Add Momentum to G.O.P. Push to Loosen Banking Rules,” The New York Times, January 15, 2018, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/us/politics/democrats-banking-rules.html. ↩
  46. Authors’ analysis using American National Election Studies, “ANES 2016 Time Series Study.” ↩
  47. Gregg Gelzinis and Joe Valenti, “Fact Sheet: The Senate’s Bipartisan Dodd-Frank Rollback Bill” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2018), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2018/02/28/447264/fact-sheet-senates-bipartisan-dodd-frank-rollback-bill/.   ↩
  48. Authors’ analysis of data from Cooper and others, “The Divide Over America’s Future: 1950 or 2050? Findings from the 2016 American Values Survey.” ↩
  49. Ibid. ↩
  50. Authors’ analysis using American National Election Studies, “ANES 2016 Time Series Study.” ↩
  51. Ibid. ↩
  52. Tax Policy Center, “T17-0311 – Conference Agreement: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act; Baseline: Current Law; Distribution of Federal Tax Change by Expanded Cash Income Level, 2018,” available at http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/conference-agreement-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-dec-2017/t17-0311-conference-agreement. ↩
  53. Tax Policy Center, “T17-0316 – Conference Agreement: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act; Baseline: Current Law; Distribution of Federal Tax Change by Expanded Cash Income Percentile, 2027,” available at http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/conference-agreement-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-dec-2017/t17-0316-conference-agreement. ↩
  54. Authors’ analysis of data from Cooper and others, “The Divide Over America’s Future: 1950 or 2050? Findings from the 2016 American Values Survey.” ↩