weight in 2004 vote 2004 2000 1988 1980 1976
BushII BushII BushI Reagan Ford
Under $15,000 (8%) 36% 37% 37% 43% 40% $15-30,000 (15%) 42% 41% 49% 53% 43% $30-50,000 (22%) 49% 48% 56% 59% 53% $50-75,000 (23%) 56% 52% 62%* 64% 63%* $75-100,000 (14%) 55% 53% ----* ---* ---* $100-150,000 (11%) 59%** 54% 65% ---* ---*
*combines categories ** my combination sources: 2004: CNN http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html 1976-2000: New York Times, Nov 12, 2000 compiled from VNS (2000) and NYT/CBS ('76-88).
1) It seems that people DO vote more along class lines now than they did before neo-liberalism. This goes in the same direction as the somewhat noted book by Stonecash that Doug has mentioned (Stonecash selectively mixes into the numbers many other points about the impending success of the Democrats). Greatly missing is a look the changes in those who have been not voting (only 2004 percentages were available to me for this table).
Of course it is a bit astonishing that people have not reacted even more to the situation...but the true extent of situation is really only now emerging among economists (maybe more on this in another post). Partly this is because the official tabulations require extensive data re-work e.g. the standard reference for income distribution (the Census Bureau) leaves out the largest single source of inequality: non-salary income; the standard reference for wealth distribution (the Fed Reserve) leaves out one of the most massive shifts in wealth: the new pension inequality. Obviously very little of all this appears in the mass media. People may feel their frustration but to become truly political it needs a social context - they need to see that it is not just a personal situation (and, of course, they need to have a practical opportunity to vote for change before this can fully show up in the numbers).
2) As I said, this data doesn't tell us who didn't vote. It is also flaky data. It seems The Times did some adjusting of the categories for inflation and growth but it is VERY crude. The various polls probably used disparate survey methodologies. Self reporting on income is very shaky. Income needs to be broken down by age group before it even starts to approximate class (retirees and young people have income different than those of their class). And one really wants to then see the cross tabs by 'social' groups (race, gender, religion, religiosity, region, etc) to get a sense of trends.
Mentally, I took as the reference for this table the "working class" vote for the Republicans. So I left out the '92 & '94 elections with Perot in the picture. I left in the '80 (Anderson) and the last two elections (Nader); obviously this is crude (but serviceable?).
Can anyone recommend any research that *empirically* looks into these issues (economic breakdowns of voting patterns) in a serious way?
Hope this is of some use Paul