Yes, Workers Want Progressive Economics

A new CWCP analysis finds the working class holds broadly progressive economic views. The real gaps are about how policies are framed, not about progressive economics itself.

Nicholas Jacobs recently wrote an article in which he argues that “On every major plank of the progressive economic agenda, Democrats are now substantially to the left of the workers they claim to champion.”

He goes on to say that Democrats want government healthcare but the working-class doesn’t, and that “Most working class voters don’t want job guarantees.” And generally concludes that class war—e.g. Fight-the-Oligarchy campaigns and his own state’s Democratic senate candidate Graham Platner’s sentiment that the war has already begun and the Democratic Party “needs to pick the side of working people.”—is not the way for the Democrats to win back the working class.

Jared Abbott addresses—and contextualizes—Jacobs’s conclusions in a new piece in Jacobin. Among other things, Abbott points out that the framing and the messaging matter, and matter a lot. Jacobs’s read holds up as far as it goes, but it draws on a single dataset, American National Election Studies (ANES).

Abbott helps illustrate the situation with two issue-based heat maps (which alone are worth a visit to the free article) that highlight the working-class v. Dem stances across not just ANES but also Cooperative Election Survey, the General Social Survey, Pew, AP-NORC VoteCast, and Gallup.

And he points out that the working class holds strong progressive attitudes across a wide range of economic issues—“minimum wage (58%), expanded Medicaid ( 78%), paid leave (66%), stronger unions (about 60%), and higher taxes on corporations and top earners (57 to 69%).”

In short, and in fact,

“The real gaps between workers and Democrats are concentrated in the most abstract and far-reaching versions of these policies and in framings that don’t connect with core working-class values — not in any general resistance to progressive economics.”

You can read all about it here. (Hopefully after you ensure you’ve remembered to subscribe to this newsletter.)

And happy 4th to you from all of us at The CWCP.