The New Republic

Among the most jarring statistics from last fall's election is John
Kerry's 23-point deficit among white, working-class voters. For
several months now, liberals have blamed this on Kerry's timid
economic message. And, for several months now, the many other
explanations for why working-class voters might distrust
Kerry--from national security to his Brahmin vacation habits-- have
made this economic argument easy to ignore. But, last month,
polling expert Ruy Teixeira stumbled onto a data point that made
the liberal case far more compelling: Working-class whites not only
preferred George W. Bush overall, they also favored him by a
16-point margin on the economy. Surely that vindicates the economic
populists, doesn't it?Actually, no. The biggest reason Democrats' economic appeals to
white, working-class voters fell flat isn't that they weren't
passionate enough. It's that Democrats have run up against the
limits of what they--or anyone else--can do to create and protect
good jobs, the top economic priority of working-class voters. And
the political implications of that development are enormous.

The best way to see that employment is the sine qua non of economic
wellbeing is to look at the relationship between jobs and other
issues like health care, taxes, and education. When jobs are
plentiful, voters have the luxury of worrying about these secondary
economic concerns; when jobs are scarce, employment overwhelms all
other priorities. For example, with record low unemployment in the
summer of 2000, only 3 percent of Americans told Gallup their top
concern was jobs. But, in August 2003, after two years of job loss
and stagnant wages, 17 percent of Gallup respondents ranked
unemployment/jobs as their top concern, versus 5 percent or less
for health care, the budget, or education.

After World War II, Democrats benefited from a politically potent
syllogism: Membership in a labor union could guarantee workers a
stable, high-paying job; Democrats were the party of labor;
therefore, a vote for Democrats was a vote for a high-paying job.
But, as my colleague John B. Judis recently wrote, that arrangement
broke down amid increasing globalization in the 1970s ("Structural
Flaw," February 28). Thanks to rising global production capacity and
the prevalence of cheap foreign labor, real hourly wages fell
slightly between the '70s and the late '90s. About one-quarter of
U.S. manufacturing jobs migrated overseas during the last 25
years.

As Harold Meyerson, The Washington Post's resident (and uncannily
astute) laborite suggests, Democrats have to reverse these trends
if they want their economic agenda to become the trump card it once
was. Unfortunately, this may not be possible. One approach might be
government policy--say, slowing the pace of trade liberalization.
But, at best, that would only delay the hollowing out of the U.S.
manufacturing sector, not stop it. The textile industry is one of
the most protected in the country. Yet, over the last decade, it has
been hardest hit by international competition, shedding about half
its jobs.

Liberals also stress the importance of reversing the long-term
decline in unionization, which fell from about one-third of the
workforce in the mid-'60s to 12.5 percent today. But even powerful
industrial unions have proved little match for the forces of
globalization and technological change. The heavily unionized
German manufacturing sector has lost about 25 percent of its jobs
since 1991.

In response to these forces, workers have migrated from the
production side of the economy to the service side. Today, about 12
percent of the white, working class is employed in manufacturing,
versus 23 percent in wholesale, retail, and hospitality. These jobs
are less sensitive to globalization--a sales clerk in Phoenix
doesn't compete with a sales clerk in Kuala Lumpur. And, in theory,
labor could organize these workers, too--one proposal before the
afl- cio at its annual winter meeting this week is to create a $25
million fund for unionizing Wal-Mart's million-plus employees. But
even that wouldn't amount to much. At unionized CostCo, a pioneer
in using higher pay and benefits to increase productivity, average
wages are only $16 per hour. That's far better than at rival
Wal-Mart. But it's still 10 percent below the average real wage of
a working-class job back in 1972.

Politically, working-class whites seem more and more aware of the
fact that Democrats have lost the ability to deliver stable,
well-paying jobs. Union members have always been more likely to
vote Democratic than the rest of the country. In 1984, Walter
Mondale did about 50 percent better among union voters than he did
overall. But that advantage has fallen in almost every election
since; last year, Kerry did just 26 percent better among union
members. The trend is all the more stark when you consider that
unions during this period were becoming more African American, more
Latino, and more female--something that should have made them more
Democratic, not less.

Meyerson notes that Bush's 16-point margin among the working-class
whites on the economy is probably overblown, since it tended to
move with his numbers on terrorism. But, assuming the economy was a
wash--that is, white, working-class voters found Bush's message on
ownership and taxes as compelling as Kerry's message on health care
and outsourcing--that would still have been devastating for Kerry.
After all, working-class whites preferred Bush by 31 points on
terrorism. As long as Democrats have only a limited potential to
make up ground on economics, they will have to lose far fewer
voters on issues related to security and values.

Morally, of course, Democrats have an obligation to defend the
economic interests of the working class. While Democrats may no
longer be able to deliver high-paying jobs, they can certainly ease
the wrenching transition to a global economy--with national health
care, spending on education and retraining, generous unemployment
benefits, and more effective labor laws. The paradox is that, if
Democrats want an opportunity to implement their economic agenda,
they are probably not going to get it by emphasizing economics
above all else. That may not be satisfying for the populists in the
party. But, for the moment, the most satisfying thing of all would
be to win an election.

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