> Larry Bartels has posted the updated version of his critique of Tom
> Frank's What's The Matter With Kansas on his website (it's the top
> link, ID'd as QJPS 2006). The original is just below it (APSA
> 2006). The early version used a definition of the white working
> class as white voters in the bottom third of the income
> distribution. Drawing on Ruy Teixeira's work, Frank rejected that
> definition, preferring the lack of a college degree as the
> standard. Neither definition, however, supports the thesis of
> What's The Matter With Kansas.
>
> The two papers, along with several other quite interesting ones,
> are at <http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/papers.htm>.
>
> Doug
So the Democratic Party has gained more white workers in the bottom third, though it has lost some of them in the middle and a lot of them in the top third to the Republican Party. If I were a supporter of the Democratic Party, that would be no consolation to me, for the higher workers' income, the more likely they actually go to the polls and vote: e.g., Ohioans whose annual household income is less than $50,000 voted against Bush by a margin of 16% (Ohioans whose annual income is $50,000 or more voted for Bush by exactly the same margin), but they constituted only 48% of the Ohioans who voted in 2004.
The question for supporters of the Democratic Party is this: why do middle-income white workers vote Republican rather than Democratic? Which is to blame: middle-income white workers or the Democratic Party? Are middle-income white workers voting against their economic interests (since, as Larry M. Bartels shows, the higher their income, the more likely questions such as abortion and religion matter to them) or has the Democratic Party's economic policy (on the wages and employment, trade and investment, taxation, and social spending fronts) failed them? Both?
Do middle-income white workers on the average get back more in social spending on them than they pay in taxes and does voting for Democrats make a positive difference for them in this respect? Does the Democratic Party's policy on wages, employment, trade, and investment positively or negatively impact them, relative to the Republican Party's?
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