The America Still Left Behind
In 1980, the top 10% of U.S. households had incomes about 9.1 times higher than the households in the bottom 10%. This ratio increased in every decade, amounting to a total increase of 39% in 2018 — the top 10% had incomes about 12.6 times that of the bottom 10%. To further contextualize this expansive income inequality, the average real wages (adjusted for inflation) have only grown by 0.7% since February 1973. In February 2022 dollars, this means that there was only a $0.18 increase in wages over a half-century, which disproportionately benefits the highest earners. Moreover, manufacturing jobs have fallen by 23% over the last three decades and amounted to a loss of nearly 7 million jobs since 1979, mostly in the Midwest.
The culmination of job loss in a previously booming industry, wage stagnation, and increasing income inequality has fueled a cycle of poverty that has left a substantial part of the United States behind in the quest for social mobility. In a case study of Dayton, Ohio – formerly a booming industrial town largely driven by the General Motors workforce – a key root of its economic downfall lies in the consequences of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). General Motors and other manufacturing employers left the industrial hubs in the Midwest, leaving thousands of workers that previously had full-time work with full benefits with part-time jobs, no benefits, and unlivable wages. As companies left the region, towns like Dayton experienced “white flight” where White people fled to the suburbs for better living conditions and economic opportunities. Due to discriminatory policies like redlining, many Black families who also wanted to move to the suburbs found the door blocked and were trapped in towns like Dayton.
With wealth, opportunity, and resources being stripped out of these towns, they became skeletons of prosperity and hubs for intergenerational poverty. This is the America that was left behind decades ago and is still trailing behind its urban and suburban counterparts due to rising costs of living, stagnant wages, a worsening opioid crisis threatening the labor force, and increased barriers to higher education. This stark contrast in the American experience has fueled a partisan divide between the working class trying to make ends meet and higher-educated individuals who have the means to maintain a quality standard of living. In recent years, the two-party system has captured these two sides of America, with party leaders urgently trying to fuel a sense of solidarity between these dualistic experiences and party platforms.
To capitalize on this opportunity, Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) wrote a memo to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in 2021 to cement the GOP as the Working-Class Party. He highlighted the impact of the Trump administration in garnering more GOP support from working-class citizens by stating contrasting occupations of donors to the 2020 presidential candidates: those that donated to Trump include 79% of mechanics, 60% of small business owners, and 59% of custodians, while those that donated to Biden include 94% of college professors, 86% of marketing professionals, and 73% of bankers. These statistics were deliberately chosen to capture a class war and link the Democratic party with cultural and economic elitism, as opposed to the more populist platform of the Republican party. Rep. Banks urged McCarthy to “consciously promote policies that appeal to working-class voters” and pointed to typical Republican priorities such as strong opposition to illegal immigration, support for trade policies that promote American industry, and general support for free-market principles.
Despite the GOP’s calls to be the party of the working-class, state-level Republican lawmakers in the South and Midwest have a history of blocking local ordinances regarding workers’ rights from taking effect — a legal phenomenon known as preemption. For example, a proposed ordinance in Kansas City establishing a city minimum wage of $8.50, higher than the state minimum wage of $7.65, was blocked by the state legislature in 2015. State preemption of local legislation to protect workers’ rights goes far beyond minimum wage and has also applied to fair scheduling laws and paid leave requirements. Moreover, these preemptive laws tend to be passed by majority-white legislatures and create barriers to economic security in cities whose residents are predominantly people of color. This further fuels the spiral of economic disadvantage initiated by discriminatory policies during the white flight. Preemption also contributed to the decline in unionization as both legal and illegal tactics to deter union campaigns were enabled by weakly enforced labor laws. Today, only 1 in 20 private-sector workers belong to a union compared to 1 in 3 in the 1950s. With little effort being made by Republicans to remedy these unfavorable trends in labor laws, it is clear that boundaries of the “working-class party” serve more benefit to fueling a culture war than actually changing the course of economic inequality.
Framing a political party around socioeconomic identity is nothing new, but is particularly problematic for upcoming elections given that decades-high inflation exacerbates the burden that these families already face making ends meet. In 2022, these small-town families in the Midwest and South were among the hardest hit with consumer prices rising at least 9%, compared to the still alarming national average of 7%. The focal point of anti-inflation legislation has been the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), originally part of President Biden’s “Build Back Better” proposal as a long-term strategy to boost economic performance. In conjunction with inflation reduction through reducing healthcare costs and increasing tax revenues, the $500 billion legislation is touted as a historic climate and jobs policy capable of creating approximately 9 million jobs over the next ten years. Moreover, it is the most significant investment in clean manufacturing, with a $50 billion investment into building a clean energy manufacturing sector and supply chain, supported by the creation of high-quality jobs for future generations.
Despite these unprecedented initiatives, many critics emphasize that this long-term investment does not deal with today’s inflation problem because the economy is already operating above capacity. These initiatives may increase future supply by reallocating existing supply, but they add on to the current demand for labor and resources. This is projected to reduce future deficits, many fear that other current policies, like Biden’s proposed cancellation of student debt, will outweigh that forecast by boosting budget deficits. Thus, its core impact of anti-inflation remains muddled amidst other policy priorities, which is not reassuring in the short term for the average working-class family. Moreover, there are concerns that the investments in clean manufacturing may only leave these Americans further behind due to the gap in skills needed for new jobs and potential geographic disconnect between where jobs are being lost and new sustainable projects are being brought.
As of February 2023, the inflation rate was approximately 6% as measured by the Consumer Price Index, which is a slight improvement of 0.4% from January’s level of inflation. However, this is still very high and many essential products still experience substantial price surges, notably increases of 9.5% in food prices and 5.2% in energy prices compared to a year ago. With future-focused legislation like the IRA being implemented simultaneously with progressive policies that may increase the budget deficit, the immediate issue of targeting rising prices for working-class families remains a difficult policy objective to fulfill. Beyond the context of global inflation, these families, particularly in the Midwest, are also overlooked by the lack of action to enforce labor reform due to state-level preemption. While narratives of average working-class America are being placed into political buckets amidst lacking legislative action on both sides, the question remains — how long will this America be left behind?
Ashley Ganesh (‘25) is a sophomore at Brown University. She is a staff writer for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be contacted at ashley_ganesh@brown.edu