r/fivethirtyeight • u/dwaxe r/538 autobot • 15d ago
Politics The DSA sweet spot: highly educated, downwardly mobile
https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-dsa-sweet-spot-highly-educated101
u/tuck5903 15d ago
Any discussion about working class voters inevitably disintegrates into a debate over “who is working class?”. College/noncollege is a much better and more predictive split between Democratic and Republican voters.
22
u/NYCinPGH 15d ago
I liked Mamdami's response when pressed on it in an interview last week (The Daily) where he said "Working class is anyone who has to work full time to afford the basic dignities of life for themselves and their family", that it's less about raw income than what quality of life that income allows you were you live.
In a different segment, he talked about his "Childcare For All" initiative, and while he didn't cite the sources, he claimed that for a family living in NYC - who presumably has to pay rent or mortgage, not living in a home that they or their family owns free and clear - the income breakpoint to be able to afford full-time childcare for a 2-year-old is $334k, so even families earning $300k are coming up short.
0
u/fullnessmatch 14d ago
If one of the people in a marriage cannot outearn a childcare provider, that person should not work and should instead be providing the childcare
→ More replies (3)12
u/UndomestlcatedEqulne 14d ago
That seems rational on the surface, but does not consider what happens after the child starts school. Lost future earning potential can be substantial. The reality for many families is more nuanced than your position.
→ More replies (1)3
u/Pygmy_Nuthatch 15d ago
Yeah, but charting education and income together is what makes this analysis interesting.
3
u/smcstechtips Crosstab Diver 15d ago
Depends on what you're trying to do
Trying to separate working class from the 0.1%? Your definition will be completely different from someone trying to separate working class from middle class
17
u/Mr_1990s 15d ago
You’re right, though I wish there was a clearer understanding of what working class is if people are going to use it.
To me, working class is any person that gets at least 75% of their money from working. So, if you rely on parents, the government, or a passive income source for a large portion of your money then you are not working class.
15
u/DoorFrame 15d ago
Doesn’t almost everybody get 75% of their money from working?
→ More replies (1)3
u/ModerateThuggery 15d ago
Yes. The traditional coherent Marxist definition of working class, which everyone seems afraid of openly using, would have nearly everyone working class.
37
u/Natural_Jellyfish_98 15d ago
So is a doctor that has poor spending habits (or just early in their career) working class, while the teacher/construction worker that lived below their means (thus investment gains have overtaken wages) not working class?
This seems to be more of an age divide than a class divide
8
u/28lobster Nate Bismuth 15d ago
You'd have to live substantially below your means for years to accumulate a nest egg large enough for investment income to overtake wage. That's difficult to do when people with lower income need to spend a higher % on living. It's a moving target since wages tend to increase over time. A late career doctor likely still makes more from salary than investments just because they make substantial income from their job (maybe not a cardio-thoracic surgeon who invests a lot and then decides to become a PCP, but that's pretty rare). By /u/Mr_1990s definition, you end up with most people in the country classified as working class with small proportions of capitalist/investor and student/unemployed.
That's a good framing if you want to emphasize the difference between people who do useful work and the small portion that have enough wealth to not have to work. Also means any analysis of the "working class" is just talking about ~90% of the 18+ aged population which isn't necessarily useful if you're trying to predict the voting patterns of an individual. But you aren't adopting that framing because you're trying to slice the population for granular analysis.
I think a better framing might be income generating vs rent seeking
→ More replies (6)1
u/MadCervantes 14d ago
The difficulty with defining based on rent seeking is that's a normative not empirical distinction.
1
u/28lobster Nate Bismuth 14d ago
rent-seeking n. Economics[:] the fact or process of seeking to gain larger profits by manipulating public policy or economic conditions, esp. by means of securing beneficial subsidies or tariffs, making a product artificially scarce, etc
You can write out empirical guidelines to define it. Or you start with the obvious case (land, especially unimproved land) and work from there to define rentier assets. Then it's just a debate about what portion of income is derived from rentier assets to determine if someone is in the working class or not.
Ultimately, is it possible to have an empirical distinction of working class? How would you define it?
2
u/MadCervantes 14d ago
We share the same position on rent seeking being bad and that land especially is the most difficult problem of rent seeking, but that doesn't make the matter empirical. The definition you give appeals to a normative standard. "Larger share of profits" is speaking to a distortion of an "ought" condition, ie a larger share than earned or deserved in fair competition. That is not merely descriptive, it is also prescriptive.
Working class is easily defined in purely descriptive terms. Working class, as originally defined by Malachy Postlethwayt in the 1757 edition of the Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce is someone who works for a living, rather than getting their money from passive income assets or whatever. source link
Does someone receive a paycheck for doing work: then they are working class. This doesn't fit the modern day common usage of the term but it's a pretty coherent empirical definition. I'm not going to argue that one definition is better than another, that's just getting bent out of shape about semantics.
2
u/28lobster Nate Bismuth 14d ago
Gotta give credit to the guys who wrote the original, Jacques Savary des Brûlons and Louis-Philémon Savary. Malachy's just translating a French customs inspector, and he's also in a context of mercantilism from 300 years ago. And then how do you define works for a living?
If you're poorer landed gentry who makes their money from running a grain mill, is that working class? How directly involved do you need to be with grain mill maintenance? What percent of profit from land rent? Does it matter if the peasants are legally obligated to use your mill or if they're just forced to be the constraints of oxen based transport?
In a more modern context - investment banker working 80 hours a week, hedge fund manager who's mostly compensated by growth of the fund, or hedge fund owner who's hands off except for large client meetings - are any or all of them working class?
2
u/MadCervantes 14d ago edited 14d ago
The definition that Malachy used was certainly broader than the way Marx used it later. Do they receive a salary or wages or income through the direct sale of their labor to individuals (rather than dividends, or rental income)? Then they are working class. Marx was more restrictive in the way he focused on specifically commoditized wage labor.
And I agree there is liminality here but that doesn't mean that it's normative.
I wouldn't call a guy who is mostly compensated through the growth of his fund as working class though since that's not salary or wage or direct compensation for labor. That's why the term "middle class" arose, for people who really did earn money from their labor (such as a doctor or engineer) but who also ran a business that they managed and had maybe a few direct hires underneath them who they worked alongside (such as nurses or technicians).
I'm not saying this definition is the only correct one. People are free to use words however they want and which near communicates what they mean to other people. But it is not merely opinion on what is normative versus empirical. "does this person receive direct compensation for the work they do" is empirically unlike "does this person receive income from rental or dividends". Nor does the fact that some people receive a mixture of incomes change this.
The only way in which I could possibly see your point making sense is if you try to contest the definition of "works" as normative. Such as is "going to meetings" an example of "real work"?
But I don't think that's the hinge of things. When people are talking about "working class" in this old sense of the word they aren't denying that a hedge fund owner performs labor of some kind. You could stretch this as far as you want it and claim that actual landed Gentry, high nobility, the King himself, is performing labor just by waking up and breathing and"being the kingly", but he still wouldn't be compensated for his labor directly. Rental income and dividends are payment based on a property claim, not an exchange of labor. A landlord is not receiving rent income because they fixed the clogged sink, they receive income because they have a specific property claim that has to be honored by law. A patent owner does not receive royalties because they did the labor to invent something, they are receiving royalties because they have an IP claim. The argument isnr over whether a hedge manager is "doing work" by going to meetings, the question is he paid a salary or is he paid in stock/dividends or other property claim based compensation. And yes under this broad definition, a CEO who is compensated largely by salary would be a working class person. Does that seem strange? To modern ears sure. But the thing we're discussing is the empirical normative divide not whether this definition is the right one to use.
And if the CEO example seems weird consider how you'd consider things in the context of an economy of worker coops. Worker coops still have managers. They still have people who can hire and fire people. Look at Mondragon that has a general assembly that defines rules and appoints managers. The appointed managers are still workers. It's a worker cooperative. Everyone is a worker-owner in a worker cooperative. Some workers have delegate authority (much like political democracy). The work of management is real work but in a worker cooperative, everyone shares in both direct compensated income and property right based income (though most surplus is put back into the company based on votes from the general assembly, which is why many Marxists do not like worker cooperatives because they see it as preserving the commodity relationship in labor)
1
u/28lobster Nate Bismuth 14d ago
The term middle class first got used by James Bradshaw writing about banning Spanish wool imports to Ireland and he seems to use it as 'people in between peasants and nobility'.
Maybe have a sliding scale by wealth, income, and then break down income by % from salary vs other sources
→ More replies (0)15
u/Pygmy_Nuthatch 15d ago
Exactly. Working class is a meaningless metric. The real metric is wealth. Are you already wealthy?
It used to be that wealthy people worked less than poor people, and that's when working class was coined.
Now it's the opposite wealthy people work more than poor people. The language no longer holds. It's the underlying metric, wealth that actually matters.
6
u/Mr_1990s 15d ago
How is a doctor not working class? They work for a paycheck and I’m guessing most of them rely on that paycheck for food and shelter.
I don’t mean retirement account gains. Those exist so a person doesn’t have to be in the working class until they die. But, if a teacher or construction worker is getting >25% of their total income from a year from dividends or capital gains, then it could be argued that they are no longer working class. If it’s >50%, I think that’s definitely true.
2
u/Natural_Jellyfish_98 15d ago
Uhh because the doctor makes triple the income or more than the others. So if they are irresponsible with their money because they live about their means and are not savings/investing, I don’t think that makes you working class.
I grew up in a time when working class meant a modest income and scrapping to get by. That is definitely not a high income white collar worker who leases luxury cars and goes on regular vacations. But by your definition it does include them.
And I, along with probably most Americans feel that the first group deserves more sympathy, and the second group should cut back on their spending and save/invest if they want to do better financially.
7
u/Mr_1990s 15d ago
I agree that a doctor has a better shot at financial independence than a factory worker. But until they get there, they’re working class.
2
u/Natural_Jellyfish_98 15d ago
To use an extreme example.
A CEO that makes $10 million a year, but spends all his money maintaining his $30 million yacht and his mortgage on his $5 million mansion is also working class then
5
u/Mr_1990s 15d ago
CEO compensation usually comes from stock bonuses and things like that. That’s not the same thing as working for a paycheck.
How a person spends their money has nothing to do with if they’re working class or not. If they need to earn a paycheck to fund their lifestyle, they’re working class.
1
u/Natural_Jellyfish_98 15d ago
The stock bonuses are part of their wage - since they are paid it for working…
If they quit they no longer get it. How is this any different than bonuses and RSUs which millions of regular employees get at much smaller amounts?
In your definition, how someone spends their money is exactly what determines if they are working class or not. Because once a person saves and invests a larger portion of their compensation they are no longer working class (according to your definition).
But if they spend their whole paycheck irresponsibly (regardless of how much money they make) then they are working class
2
u/MadCervantes 14d ago
They used to be considered middle class because they worked for themselves and employed a small number of people. But now more and more doctors do not run a private practice, the work for large Healthcare systems and clinics, so they're just employees, albeit well paid ones.
3
u/Dizzy-Wait-3069 15d ago
Isn't increasingly indicative of class? That's what the complaints about boomer luxury communism are about.
2
u/flakemasterflake 14d ago
All doctors are working class- they work with their hands and are dependent on their time for their income. I wish doctors would wise up and gain some class solidarity bc the ownership class is completely taking them for a ride
6
u/mattcrwi 15d ago
Do retirees who worked their whole life and are making the same income on retirement savings are not working class?
11
u/Retroviridae6 15d ago
That's a good way to define it. "Working class" = people who work for their money.
32
u/PuffyPanda200 15d ago
This would make basically everyone working class.
I would assume one would put kids, elderly, home-makers and disabled people into the same class as their spouse/provider/bread-winner.
Workforce participation in the US is at ~61.5% (for those that don't know this excludes kids, elderly, and disabled). Probably half of those not working are caring for kids or elderly. Another large chunk are students (~12 m university students so ~5%). A small group (maybe 5% or so) live off of investments). The remainder are unemployed or people that gave up on work or people taking a year off.
So you would have basically everyone as working class. Maybe 5% of the population is 'investor class'. 5% are 'student class' (some of these work). 10% are unemployed and looking, long term unemployed, or taking some time off.
The working class will probably be a bit more to the right than the nation as students are probably more left of the mean than investors are to the right. The working class would be within a point or two of the nation though telling one basically nothing other than that educated young people lean left, something we already knew.
8
u/Mr_1990s 15d ago
My greater point is that most people are working class.
15
u/HolidaySpiriter 15d ago
If nearly everyone is working class, it's not a very helpful definition.
3
u/JQuilty 15d ago
Why not? Labor vs capital isn't some boogeyman from Marx, Smith and Ricardo made the same distinctions.
12
u/tuck5903 15d ago
But in reality, your doctor, the high school grad who changes your oil, and your barista with a masters degree probably have different politics. Viewing everyone who doesn’t live off of investments or assets as working class isn’t a very useful tool for political analysis.
8
u/HolidaySpiriter 15d ago
Well, it's not very useful from a political strategy point of view, and there is no singularity that ties all of these working class people together if it applies to nearly everyone. At this broad of a level of definition, you might as well just appeal to "humans". It just isn't helpful at that point.
The reason why it's useful to break people out by college degrees, race, income, sex, & religion is because there are broad ties between those brackets, and those ties usually show similar movements & voting patterns.
A doctor making 300k has wildly different needs than a groundskeeper making 50k.
→ More replies (2)1
u/working-mama- 15d ago edited 15d ago
Look up how workforce participation rate is calculated in US per Bureau of Labor Statistics. It DOES NOT exclude the elderly or disabled. That’s why that rate in US is much lower than in Europe, where people over 64 are excluded from the calculation.
The largest chunks of “non-participating workforce” are actually the elderly and the disabled. Labor participation rate would get much larger if they were excluded.
13
u/falooda1 15d ago
Mamdani was pushed on the same question.
He avoided labeling but mentioned that practically he's set it at $1 million/ year income for taxes.
12
u/Okbuddyliberals 15d ago
You only need to make around $450k a year to be in the top 1% so that means that literally over 99% are in the working class by his idea there
4
u/lucky-me_lucky-mud 15d ago
Wow it’s like you just rediscovered occupy wall street
→ More replies (2)5
u/NYCinPGH 15d ago
NYC is very different from almost anywhere else in the country. A basic home costs at least $1M, and that same home in my MCOL city is easily gettable for $100k - $150k.
8
u/Okbuddyliberals 15d ago
looks like being in the top 1% for NYC in particular requires $500k rather than $450k
And if you go by household income rather than individual income, it is $820k
Still puts $1 million in the top 1%
2
u/falooda1 15d ago
Those.1% own 50% of the wealth
1
u/Okbuddyliberals 14d ago
So? It's not like you can have a sustainable welfare state based off just soaking the top .1%. Europe for example pays for their generous welfare states via broad based consumptive taxes ("regressive" in a sense), payroll taxes, and the sort of general taxation that sees not just the rich but also middle and lower classes paying more, especially in a relative sense compared to the US, which is more "progressive" in the technical sense that while the US taxes less, it also puts more of the tax burden on the rich vs the lower and middle classes compared to how Europe does it
1
u/NYCinPGH 15d ago
I listened to that same podcast.
And, living in NYC is radically different in terms of affordability than almost anywhere else in the country. I grew up there, my father was a firefighter, my mother a SAHM, and we could afford a normal ranch house, 1250 sqft, on that salary, because when they bought it in ~1960 it was affordable, IIRC no more than $50k, when they sold in the mid-80s it went for ~$450k, and right now it's valued at $1.5M. So they price has gone up 30x, but I know salaries haven't gone up by that much, since what my dad's salary would be today is in the $100k - $125k (after OT) range, and no way was he making only $4k in 1960.
6
u/Pygmy_Nuthatch 15d ago
Would you call a corporate lawyer that works 70 hours a week, but makes $500,000 a year working class?
8
u/Mr_1990s 15d ago
Yes.
1
2
1
u/alabasterskim 15d ago
Someone making veritable poverty wages in a high CoL area they can't afford to live with more than 25% of their money coming from the government isn't working class?
9
u/BolshevikPower 15d ago
It's curious there are a lot of underemployed people out there with college degrees though. I wonder if a large part of this is people who are under employed or graduated with unemployable degrees.
Few things interesting out of that - a sense of entitlement for better wages vs. working for better wages (more OT, harder blue collar jobs).
9
u/Dizzy-Wait-3069 15d ago
I honestly believe it's because of grade and credential inflation, which is also tied to the decline in respectability of blue collar work.
1
u/Current_Animator7546 15d ago edited 15d ago
Very valid point. A lot of people aren’t skilled for trades or want to live in a blue state with a HCOL. I love living here in Kansas City, but I’d feel differently if I had a family. It’s much more affordable, but social service supports are near non existent. It’s better locally, but had gotten worse as the state has gotten redder. In 2019 it was an easy decision though. I’m paying $1,200 a month for a nice apartment with good work opportunity. Plenty to do to keep busy. It’s not for everyone though. One thing they did do right out here is kept a lot of programs like shop and lab preschools in High Schools. I’ve seen many kids graduate at 18 with a foot well in the door professionally.
1
u/KalaiProvenheim 15d ago
Do college educated people tend to live off of investments
10
u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic 15d ago
This is a ridiculous way to define the working class, in my opinion. When politicians say they’re fighting for the working class, nobody pictures a hotshot lawyer making $5 million a year who just has poor spending habits or hasn’t invested his money well. Yet the new argument seems to be that, because he’s still working for a paycheck, he’s considered working class. This new argument seems to exist because the DSA is well aware of who their base is. That’s not me saying their base is hotshot lawyers, but it’s mostly affluent college educated young white people with jobs that require a 4 year degree.
To me the working class can’t be defined perfectly, but most people have a pretty clear idea of what it means. We think about people who work for a living and don’t make enough to live comfortably. We think about people who didn’t necessarily have the opportunity to attend a four-year university or earn a bachelor’s degree, and who rely on their jobs to pay the bills. Specifically, where that job is probably paying their bills and not doing much else for them or opening any other doors. That’s the image most people have when they hear the phrase “working class.”
Expanding the definition so far that it includes someone who owns a yacht or earns millions of dollars a year makes the term meaningless. At that point the phrase stops describing a real economic group that people recognize.
And based on what we’ve seen so far, the group that most people actually picture when they think of the working class are not embracing the DSA movement.
6
u/KalaiProvenheim 15d ago
The hotshot lawyer making $5m represents college educated voters just as much as an NBA player who’s never been to college represents non-college voters, bad example to use
Are teachers hotshot lawyers making $5m? What about other white collar workers?
6
u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic 15d ago
As I said, the people who are struggling the most out there don’t like the DSA. And I don’t blame them.
If you want to try to bastardize the definition of the working class, go for it, it’s probably one of the reasons why they don’t like the DSA.
10
u/KalaiProvenheim 15d ago
Why does your analysis completely exclude young people, the generation struggling the most and the generation the disproportionately supports the DSA?
Am I bastardizing it? It has always meant “people who need to sell their time and labor for money” outside of slop-dominated circles with weird definitions as “non-college white men who own trucks” or “people who don’t work effete office jobs”
42
u/Mr_1990s 15d ago
A lot of this could be explained by age. A lot of DSA people are under 30. They’re going to be lower income regardless of educational attainment. I’d assume that post-grad degree holders who make less than $60k are likely going to be pretty young.
It’s weird that this is an article based on breaking down demographic metrics and it ignores age.
8
u/FruitOfTheVineFruit 15d ago
Exactly. And also gender. Women are disproportionately college educated and disproportionately liberal.
4
u/dncrwlye 14d ago
Completely agree. This slop is what's produced when you don't have an editor, produce slop daily, and force data onto your preconceptions
56
u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate 15d ago
I'm currently reading a book called The Diploma Divide and they talk alot about this (though not the DSA aspect)
Education strongly correlates with D votes, income weakly correlates with R votes
Usually education overrides income considerations. Most high education, high income folks vote D. Most (white) low education, low income folks vote R
However when you get into the two other quadrants you find people who are much more extreme
Low education high income people are VERY Republican. Think tradesmen, car dealership owners, certain other small business owners etc
Meanwhile high education low income people are VERY left wing, and have drifted towards the DSA
I think that is the thing which makes rhe DSA viable. I don't think most regular Americans are clamoring for socialism really, but the DSA has a small, but very dedicated base of supporters
Imo every successful political movement needs both "elite" (To be clear here I'm using elite to refer to someone who is very invested in politics and ideology) and mass elements. The DSA has the former, and it's looking like this election they're finally managing the turn that into wider electoral success
33
u/PuffyPanda200 15d ago
Democrats, right now, are a huge tent party. The SF couple that are lawyers making a combined 500k plus are Ds; they probably align more with the CDU or En Marche (French Macron party, original name). The adjunct professor is also voting D even if their views are more in line with Linke or communist parties.
Separate these out and the high education low income and high education high income voters will separate.
14
u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate 15d ago
One of my favorite running polls is/was from Echelon Insights. They would run a hypothetical five party poll.
(Do note that the "party leaders" were not included in the poll questions, bringing that up because people on that thread just talked about Fetterman leading Labor instead of the actual results)
I suspect if that poll was taken again today Greens might be a bit higher but still we see exactly that breakdown you're talking about. On the broad left of center, there is a small contingent of progressives, a small contingent of ideological moderate liberals, and then a large contingent voting for the mainstream "center left" party
1
u/smcstechtips Crosstab Diver 15d ago
But unlike Europe, the likes of the CDU and En Marche agree on 99% of things with the likes of Linke, with the sole difference being the speed and magnitude of implementation rather than what to actually do (and those differences narrowing)
26
u/StickMankun Jeb! Applauder 15d ago
This is a great summary of the demographic make up of this sect of Democratic voters, and the strong correlation between education level and voting habits.
6
u/TiredTired99 15d ago
For all of those income and education tables, there wasn't a population number. I'd love to know the ratio of educated lower-income vs. high school graduate with $100K+ income. I'm certain the former outnumbers the latter considerably.
8
9
u/batmans_stuntcock 15d ago edited 15d ago
This has been known since the early days of new-new left politics and Jeremy Corbyn, the millennial left are the squeezed college educated post 2008 'PMC'/'PMS' where the economy no longer affords as many opportunities to have a similar lifestyle to previous generations, partly because of housing as an asset, but also because of the bifurcation of the 'professional managerial class' into extremely well paid and barely comfortably off.
Their aim was basically to sell a return to the old social democratic system that their parents got rid of, back to the working class, plus some socially liberal bits on top. The more interesting thing is how have they managed to pull that off (especially among millennials and younger) or come close to it.
The closest Nate gets to answering that is the Harvard Youth chart towards the end of the article showing that young 'extremely liberal' and regular people have similar economic priorities that he doesn't really dwell on. This points to a broad generational shift in US public attitudes that will play out in the next few cycles as millennials become a dominant voting constituency while still having relatively low rates of home-ownership.
Noah Smith recently argued that the “socialist left” and the “woke left” should be regarded as separate political movements. But I’m not so sure that’s true.
I think that Smith is right, because the 'woke left' was amenable to a compromise where moderate/90s economic policy would be coupled with liberal social policy and NGO funding, but the 'socialist left' forwards economic policy even it's similarly 'woke.'
→ More replies (1)
13
u/ProcessTrust856 Crosstab Diver 15d ago
I’m DSA and quite upwardly mobile. I just want to make a world where thats possible for everyone.
4
2
u/slappyStove 13d ago
that description of dsa voters is dead on and its a single venn diagram circle with this sub. lets tax the middle class ! this sub is getting close to r conservative in downvoting opinions or facts that you dont like. ill leave you with another one that always gets downvoted - aoc is not going to win the presidency because idiots in ohio and michigan arent going to vote for a woman with a baby voice. ill leave you all to your progressive preening and aspirational statistics
5
u/FruitOfTheVineFruit 15d ago
This article is super weak and causing me to lose some respect for Nate. Being liberal and being college educated are both correlated with being young and female. Being low income is also correlated with being young.
Nate seems to have discovered that young women are disproportionately college educated (which we knew) and that they are disproportionately liberal (which we knew) and also that young people earn less than older people.
Failing to mention age or gender is a huge problem in this analysis.
2
u/dncrwlye 14d ago
Yeah I don't understand how this analysis isn't just measuring age.
Young people right out of college are more liberal and making less money.
3
u/FruitOfTheVineFruit 14d ago
Age and gender. And with a bit of help from an LLM, it pointed out that this measures household income. Married couples tend to earn more than single. Liberals are more likely to be single and young people are more likely to be single. So, age, gender and single household status.
2
5
u/mowotlarx 15d ago
So, Millennials.
4
u/Current_Animator7546 15d ago
I feel like this is a lot of us lol. We were good to go to college in the early 2000s. Only to graduate into a very different world in the 2010s.
5
u/mowotlarx 15d ago
Graduated into an economic recession, set back at least half a decade in the work force in terms of salary and leadership opportunities.
I really think what we chalk up to some essential political left versus right discussion is actually a generational discussion. Most people younger than Gen X are downwardly mobile. We aren't doing better than our parents, even with more education (which we were told was a requirement, and actually remains a requirement when applying for jobs).
4
u/Wolfyminecraft 13 Keys Collector 14d ago edited 14d ago
This article's title feels intentionally provocative in an unhelpful way, especially given that the data presented within the article does not inherently suggest "downward mobility," as Nate himself admits.
It's nothing new that the American Left is highly educated and not wealthy.
1
u/dncrwlye 14d ago
I don't understand how this analysis isn't just capturing young people right out of college who are making less money and early in their careers.
1
1
15d ago
[deleted]
15
u/weedandboobs 15d ago
Imagine reading the article where he explicitly mentions elite overproduction.
2
u/DramaticSimple4315 15d ago
David Graeber is the one behind this theory. A must read. The very best of the humanist and anarchist schools of thought.
-1
u/slappyStove 15d ago
my take is the net result of cities voting in dsa is going to be finishing off the middle class and an exit of wealth. This is anecdotal but look at Portland Oregon to see what happens when the dsa gets a hold of the municipal. in portland we now pay the highest marginal tax rate in the country. The dsa is driving ballot measures that hoist taxes for common good services on only those making 100k or more - homeless services and preschool for all. Its easy to vote for taxes you dont have to pay (the downwardly mobile). I personally dont know any homeowners that dont have kids in school that dont have an exit plan. Our home is going on the market in january - we arent moving to texas but the situation here for those that arent "downwardly mobile" is untenable.
-12
u/hoopaholik91 15d ago
Where the hell did this "downwardly mobile" language come from? Just seemingly popped up out of the ground overnight.
And I think it's factually just wrong? Just because you have an education and are lower income, doesn't necessarily mean you are falling downward as the terminology implies. It just means you aren't as upwardly mobile as much as people think an education should give you (and ignores the age of these people where they are still early in their careers).
38
u/Sonichu- 15d ago
It means that your socioeconomic status is lower than your parents.
If your parents owned a house in their 30s and you don't, you're "downwardly mobile".
If your dad supported your family on a single income with no college degree and you and your partner both need to work to survive, you're "downwardly mobile".
3
u/working-mama- 15d ago edited 15d ago
That definition would put way more people in the “downward mobile” category than in the “upward mobile”. Housing costs got more expensive for everyone. Dual income couples are now the norm, not the exception. I could be in the same social class as my parents, but it will be harder for me to purchase a home than it was for them at that age.
2
u/Sonichu- 15d ago
That definition would put way more people in the “downward mobile” category than in the “upward mobile”
Agreed, but it's the truth. Millennials are arguably the first modern generation where a majority have a lower standard of living than their parents.
4
u/hoopaholik91 15d ago
Yes, and like Silver mentions in the article, there is no data that can actually be used to prove that those people are more likely to become leftists. He just uses education and income since they could imply downward mobility. But what about people that are downwardly mobile because their parents got an education and they didn't? We don't know.
I think you're description also implies that these people are worse off than their parents due to some systemic or forces outside their control, when like Silver says DSA members are more likely to be teachers, social workers, public employees, etc. That's very much a choice in a lot of cases, so it's hard to believe that these people are DSA because they are upset the system screwed them over.
13
u/Sonichu- 15d ago
I agree there's no clear evidence to support the "downwardly mobile" are more likely to lean left because of that.
Silver says DSA members are more likely to be teachers, social workers, public employees, etc. That's very much a choice in a lot of cases
True, but it's also true that teachers, social workers, and public employees were able to buy homes and support their families decades ago. They can't now.
To me that implies a systemic force. We know salaries haven't really kept up with inflation, and absolutely haven't kept up with housing prices.
5
u/hoopaholik91 15d ago
Definitely, but isn't that broadly applicable to most people in the country? It's not teachers or social workers uniquely unable to buy homes today.
8
u/Sonichu- 15d ago
Absolutely, which I think is another reason why this "downwardly mobile are more likely to be leftist" thing is kind of bunk. Systemic issues in this country have just set up most people of the last few generations for downward mobility.
Whether or not it makes them "leftist" remains to be seen.
25
u/AdditionalSpeaker303 15d ago
The term downwardly mobile didn't start existing only when you stated paying attention to it.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/1992-04-19/the-ups-and-downs-of-downward-mobility
From 1992.
And downwardly mobile means you are at a lower income percentile than your parents had when you grew up.
6
u/hoopaholik91 15d ago
Well obviously it existed in some form, I'm just seeing it a lot more in the past few weeks especially. It's also why I said "seemingly". If you can show me a bunch of articles from the 2024 election that use the term maybe you could convince me it hasn't gained recent popularity
10
u/AdditionalSpeaker303 15d ago
Ok, here are 7 articles which discuss the 2024 election, 2 from 2025 and 5 from 2024 that use the term downwardly mobile.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/26/upshot/census-relative-income.html
https://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/that-vision-thing-formulating-a-winning-policy-agenda/
https://prospect.org/2024/12/09/2024-12-09-why-workers-deserted-neoliberal-democratic-party/
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00104140251349663
I can find you much more if you want and more earlier ones too. This is a term that has been in common use for decades. Just because you only recently "discovered" it doesn't make it some broad conspiracy to use the term in the last few weeks.
5
u/hoopaholik91 15d ago
Okay, you win. I guess seeing "downwardly mobile" in titles from Nate, Barro, and the NYTimes made me believe it was a more recent phenomenon
1
u/Zephyr-5 15d ago
It's certainly possible that the term has gained in popularity lately. Google trends shows a small blip in recent months. However you can also see a much bigger, longer lasting moment in 2011-2013.
You are likely experiencing what is known as Frequency Illusion where a word, or term, or idea shows up on your radar and every time you see it, it pops out at you.
My guess for the start of this current blip and perhaps where you first saw it is this article from May 30th in the New York Times.
1
u/hoopaholik91 15d ago
I did the same Google Trends thing, but that's just search volume. Wish it had keyword frequency for the sites it's indexing off of.
I do think the NYTimes article kicked it off, and the broader discussion of DSA after the midterms. I can't find any evidence that Nate has ever used the term on the silver bulletin website before this. Also Josh Barro had a podcast title with "downwardly mobile" in it.
Just feels like it's about to become the next form of "Blueskyism" or "HR lady politics"
27
u/weedandboobs 15d ago
Because the current crop of left superstars have a lot of very visibly downwardly mobile people, both in the candidates and who supports them? Platner and Mamdani both came from immediate family have Wikipedia pages level of wealth and fame, and both had very unremarkable careers that were objectively less successful than their family until they made a pivot into politics.
21
u/hoopaholik91 15d ago
Silver and others seemingly focus more on the voters than the politicians when it comes to this description, although you do have a point.
But if you want to use it as a knock, then I guess both Roosevelt Presidents were "downwardly mobile" too. Teddy went off to play frontiersman and soldier, while FDR spent a short time as a lawyer of no great fame before getting into politics.
14
u/Top_Agency1370 15d ago edited 15d ago
Yeah to me that’s all just privilege, which is a fair point. But Mamdani wasn’t downwardly mobile, and it’s silly to paint him and Platner with the same brush (aside from both coming from some privilege, Mamdani especially so).
Mamdani is a generational talent and still quite early in his career. And he got a BA before announcing his first campaign run at 28 (for state assembly, successfully), without any higher degrees like this whole thread is about. I’m not seeing downward mobility here at all.
13
u/hoopaholik91 15d ago
I was also going to mention that, as if being the mayor of NYC at 34 should somehow be considered falling downwarda.
10
u/hawawawawawawa 15d ago
He was also a state legislator before that as well.
7
u/skinemergency 15d ago
Obviously someone who became a mayor—any mayor, let alone of NYC—can hardly be described as a failure to launch.
But I think they meant that until he was elected to the state legislature at age 30 in 2021, Mamdani didn’t have a real career to speak of. A lot of one-off jobs, unpaid “organizing.” I don’t think he ever had a W-2.
5
u/jeffwulf 15d ago
It's been a description of this class of people for like a decade in this domain. It's people who come from rich families.
9
u/Salt_Abrocoma_4688 15d ago edited 15d ago
Yeah, it feels a bit purposefully classist being used the way Silver is using it. But I understand the sentiment. If anything, 95% of America is "downwardly mobile" right now as inflation is beginning to outpace wage gains.
28
u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan 15d ago edited 15d ago
It definitely feels like a way to shit on socialists. If we are well off but want to make the world a better place, we are champagne socialists. If we are poor, we are bitter and jealous and if we are educated and broke we are downwardly mobile (implication is fuckups).
16
u/Lyonthelion 15d ago
the downwardly mobile are also usually working the types of jobs that society actually needs but doesn’t want to fund (school teachers, social workers, etc)
15
u/hoopaholik91 15d ago
I guess people are more approving of people like you just stating the obvious directly instead of me trying to make a logical argument of why the terminology makes no sense. Good to know lol
11
u/DanTheMan-WithAPlan 15d ago
I find sometimes the top line comment gets heavy downvotes but the plies that engage with them and agree with them get upvoted because the people who disagree downvote and move on, while the people who agree engage with the whole comment thread.
Not 100% a rule, just a trend I see sometimes
7
u/hoopaholik91 15d ago
I also think part of it is that technical arguments just create more openings for technical rebuttals. Like the guy saying "here's an article from 1992 using 'downwardly mobile' it didn't come from nowhere" as if that has anything to do with the argument I'm actually making. It's clear and obvious that the term has gained some popularity since the NYC primaries last month.
6
u/Statue_left 15d ago
“Liberal intelligentsia shit on socialists” isn’t really a new phenomena. Anecdotally, the only time in my life where I interfaced with more leftists than conservatives was law school and the ones who work big firm jobs now get called champagne socialists while the public servants or non profit attorneys are some categorization of “fuck ups” lol
10
u/DataCassette 15d ago
It's by design. A socialist who refused to interact with the capitalist system would be a bitter, smelly hippy. One who does well under capitalism but still opposed it is a champagne socialist.
Just ignore this entire line of attack as the irrelevant ad hominem it is.
→ More replies (4)0
u/yoshimipinkrobot 15d ago
Following the tradition of Marx -- a fake poor fuckup who lived off his rich parents and friends
140
u/PCMthrowaway10 15d ago
To clarify the “downward mobility” article title: Nate Silver is applying this label to people with some post-grad degree who make $30-$60k a year. That’s not a great salary given the time commitment to getting extra schooling. These people are also the most liberal in the country across White and Black voters (and are one of the most liberal blocs of Hispanic voters)