3
Just who are the white working class?
A coal miner looks on during a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at Alice Pleasant Park on May 29, 2012 in Craig, Colo.
To view this content, Javascript must be enabled and Adobe Flash Player must be installed.
Tess Vigeland: Remember the soccer mom? And the Nascar dad? Security moms and office park dads?
We do love our election cycle swing-voter cliches. This year, from the right to the left and all across the media, there's been a lot of talk about the role of one group:
Montage: White working-class voters. White working-class voters. White working-class voters are so central.
But there's just one problem: No one can agree on exactly who these people are, or how they're feeling. Krissy Clark has more from our Wealth and Poverty Desk.
Krissy Clark: When you hear "white working class," maybe you picture a big guy, wearing:
Michael Heywood: T-shirt and jeans, steel toed boots, that sort of thing.
That's Michael Heywood of Kelso, Wash., describing himself. Never finished college. Drives a dump truck. Struggles on $40,000 a year. He's white.
Heywood: And I would definitely consider myself working-class.
Fifty years ago? He'd be a pretty good shoe-in for a Democrat. But now? He's torn.
Heywood: I am dependent on a lot of government services from food stamps to health care. But on the other hand, I have a lot of conservative ideals.
There's been a lot of time spent theorizing about guys like Heywood. White, working-class voters who over the last few decades have been eyeing the right. Is it a sign that the country's divided between Prius-driving liberals and conservatives in pick-up trucks?
Andrew Gelman: Ahhh!
That's Andrew Gelman, a political science professor at Columbia University.
Gelman: I just get a little frustrated. It's not the Prius versus the pick-up truck, it's the Prius versus the Hummer.
The real polarization in politics, Gelman says, doesn't happen between rich and poor. It happens between different kinds of rich. Low-income workers still do vote overwhelmingly Democratic, just not blue-collar white guys like Mike Heywood. But, Gelman says, they make-up a much smaller slice of the low income work-force these days, as it turns more female and more diverse.
So, Gelman wonders, why still focus so much on just one working class sub-group?
Gelman: You know everyone's vote just counts once, right? A white male vote isn't more legitimate than a minority vote, or a female vote?
Still, it is worth paying attention to white, working-class men, says Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute.
Charles Murray: The really interesting thing about voting in the white working class isn't whether it's Democrat or Republican. It's the degree to which it's declined.
And in a close election, if one party can re-engage those voters, it could make all the difference.
I'm Krissy Clark for Marketplace.
Both parties also forget the working poor white people. I think the politically correct term is "white trash'. You know working tor the same $7-8 per hour they made up to 15 years ago when gas was 85 cents per gallon. They are barely surving the "New Economy" and mean nothing to either party.
I can't believe Mr. Heywood is earning $40,000 a year and is on food stamps. A rate of $19.23 an hour is anything but working class and certainly not "poor" enough to be needing government assistance. As someone who grew up poor -- living well below the poverty line with little water, food, heat, and electricity -- and continues to earn significantly less than him despite being college educated, this is an insult. Middle class people who believe themselves to be "poor" make a mockery of those who are truly struggling.
Far too many people these days think that if they cannot afford something, that they then are "poor." As long as consumers believe that the world is their oyster and that something is bad with the economy if they cannot afford the luxuries they desire, then consumer confidence will continue to be at odds with the actual recovery currently taking place.
Benjamin, you (and Capt_Howdy) both make interesting points that get to the question of just how to define "poor." In Mike Heywood's case, he never referred to himself as poor, but "Working Class"--living paycheck to paycheck on his $40,000 (or so) a year.
It's illuminating to drill deeper in to the numbers in terms of where that income goes. Mike and his wife have 3 kids, two of whom have cystic fibrosis. He says it's the high medical bills that stretch his family's budget so thin-- something that's not unique to the Heywoods.
