The major political parties finally understand: American voters are angry and upset in 2016 and using primary ballots to vote for redress. What they want differs, if they can even define it, because anger often blinds rather than informs.
This much seems clear: For many backing either Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders, money – the lack of it – plays a big part in the political calculus. One of the enduring phrases from Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign was adviser James Carville’s reminder (“It’s the economy, stupid”) that elections turn on bread-and-butter issues.
Anger over income inequality and the billionaire class galvanizes Sanders supporters. Trump seems to connect with people who feel their lives need to be made “great” again. These voters have more in common than they know. Falling wages have punished both middle-class and working-class voters for years. These losses stem from economic transformations that aren’t going to be undone any time soon, not even with highly unlikely policy shifts in Washington, D.C.
This spring, as the presidential campaigns are finally sorted out and November tickets set, a new survey sheds light on the economic malaise that confronts so many. A Marketplace-Edison Research poll boils economic uncertainty down to a specific problem. How would your household handle an unexpected bill of $1,000? A quarter of those polled said it would be very difficult to pay that; a third said it would be somewhat difficult. Together, that’s 59 percent who would be thrown by a sudden expense. Among women it is higher, at 66 percent, due to unequal pay and wealth, and higher still, at 77 percent, for African-Americans.
“Marketplace,” the public radio program that helped devise the study, is presenting on-air reports this week that put faces on this financial anxiety. One man profiled Thursday, Earnest Pettie, 38, said keeping up “feels like being on a treadmill behind which there is a bed of spikes.”
The Census Bureau not long ago created a new category, a “supplemental poverty measure,” to count those living near that line. It’s a moving target, as the economy rises and falls, and as government programs seek to protect families, especially those with children, from poverty.
Those programs get results – as Republican voters should note. In his first term, President Obama’s stimulus program used changes in food stamp eligibility and the earned-income tax credit to help lift 11 million people above the poverty line, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. But those measures expired, making it harder today for some to qualify for assistance.
Beyond the economic cycles, a bigger trend is unmistakable. According to the Federal Reserve, recent gains in wealth have gone to the top 3 percent of Americans. The next 7 percent stayed about even, while the wealth of the bottom 90 percent has fallen. Assets of the “very rich” doubled since 2000 as corporate revenues ran through a period in which they set records. A 2013 Goldman Sachs report found corporate profits rising five times faster than wages.
The economy is more productive, but that’s because people are working harder while not being compensated better for it, on the whole.
Back when people had more faith in government, the economy shared the wealth more. In the 1960s, for example, before organized labor’s long, slow fade and the meltdown of well-paid blue-collar jobs, more than 70 percent of Americans told pollsters they believed government would do what’s right “just about always” or “most of the time,” Pew Research records show.
That faith lies in the gutter today, having fallen pretty consistently from the “Great Society” days.
Trump blames bad deals. Sanders blames inequality and campaign finance ills.
Voters, having suffered years of economic disruption that cracked their nest eggs and battered their hopes, are inflicting disruption of their own.
And who can blame them?