The left-right understanding gap
A book recommendation and some related data
In a world of “libtards” vs. "deplorables,” there is a need to understand different world views. However, in this left-right dispute, I place greater responsibility on the left to bridge this understanding gap. Why? If you want to position yourself as the intelligent, informed group, you should make more of an effort to understand the other viewpoint. You can detest Trump, but you should not hate Trump voters, as Bill Maher often says.
I'm regularly surprised by what other faculty members say because I grew up with a firefighter father who also worked as a school bus driver for extra money. A few years ago, I was at a meeting where I learned that we would change to four-day finals the following fall because otherwise, we'd complete finals on December 23, which was far too close to Christmas. Now, if you want to argue that international students should have additional time to travel home during the holidays, that's OK. However, I heard comments about having time to shop for the holidays and prepare for Christmas Day. My father always worked at least part of the 24 hours that make up Christmas Day. We either unwrapped presents extremely early before he left for work (which was fine with us kids) or waited until he returned home from work overnight. My father and millions of others in the working class work on Christmas and throughout the holidays. Us “hard-working” faculty members are off from before the 25th through early January.
Another example: a faculty member complained that we changed classes to remote via Zoom one day due to a snowfall. How was she meant to babysit her child while teaching an online class? She had a childcare issue for a few hours. Meanwhile, there were several personnel on campus shoveling snow, feeding students, and patrolling. The disconnect can often be stunning.
To help close this understanding gap, I’d recommend reading Batya Ungar-Sargon's Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women. The book uses a series of case studies to illustrate the lives of various blue-collar workers. The book is mainly qualitative, but it does include some facts to support the case studies. This sentence from the conclusion summarizes many of the book's points:
This situation is untenable—morally, spiritually, and economically. No society can survive that’s built on the labor of those with no voice.
Yet, a surprising amount of energy is expended keeping the working class silent. When two thirds of working-class white Americans voted for Donald Trump, they were dismissed by the elites as deplorables. When they tried to speak up against COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates, they were smeared as grandma killers and fascists. When they tried to point out that mass immigration was hurting their children's futures, they were called racists. When they continued to support Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP primary, they were derided for ascribing to a “grievance culture.”
The elites will find any number of slurs to avoid acknowledging the truth: the American economy rewards them to a far greater degree than the people, whose irreplaceable labor they rely on to survive.
Ungar-Sargon's book is a quick read that will benefit individuals who have little to no experience with or comprehension of the working class. It is well-written, and the personal accounts can help “educated elites” comprehend what it is like to be a working-class person. These are hardworking, good folks. They are not lazy. They're not stupid. But are they getting screwed? Is the economy failing them? I would answer yes. Let's go to the data.
Figure 1, from Pew, is a graph similar to that on page 17, but with more recent data.
You may be wondering whether the size of these groupings has changed. For example, if the number of low-income people was cut in half, their income share should be cut in half as well if income remained constant. It would be helpful if Pew included a second chart adjusted by population percentage; they do not, although they do include some of this information in their article.
Lower Income: The proportion of the population living in lower-income families grew between 1970 and 2022. In other words, more people were taking home a smaller share of the pie.
Middle Income: In 1970, approximately 62% of households were middle-income, which corresponded to their income share. By 2022, they accounted for 51% of the population and received 43% of the income. In other words, they lost ground.
Upper Income: Pew does not specify their share of the population in 2022. However, based on what we know from the other two groups, they are taking home well more than their percentage in the population.
You can start to see how the working class feels as if they are being left behind and that is because they are. Now, you might say, sure, they don’t take home as much of the income, but certainly everyone has done better, with all boats rising and what not.
Here are two income-related charts. Figure 2, from the same Pew paper, shows changes in income for the three groups.
Figure 2 illustrates the data rule: be aware of percentages without counts. Now, we can compute the "counts." When reading Figure 2, one could think that the upper income categories climbed by 78%, yet the lower income groups also did well, increasing by 55%. This is technically correct; however, the actual amounts are important here. The upper-income group's income increased by $112,852 between 1970 and 2022. This increase is greater than what the middle-income group makes and more than three times what the lower-income group already earns. Again, this is an increase, not what the upper-income group earns.
The lower-income group's 55% rise totals $12,487. This certainly makes their lives less worse, but certainly not good. I'm not sure what the cutoff is, but above a certain salary level, the money is free. Once all bills are paid, you live in a decent home, have cars, and do not have to worry about feeding yourself or your family, then the money above that limit, which I refer to as “free,” can be saved for holidays or pure luxury items. The lower-income group is not near that point, whereas the upper-income group is far beyond it. It's easy to see how the working class, which is more likely to be classified as lower or middle class, feels left behind.
Another perspective on this comes from DQYDJ (don’t quit your day job) in Figure 3.
Figure 3 shows how quickly income drops off. The disparity between the 99%, or even 90%, and the average, or worse, the lower categories, is staggering. I'm not suggesting everything should be equal, but maybe this is more skewed than is good for the country?
I hope this income information provides some extra context for reading the book and relating to the case studies. One last point:
Higher education is my expertise, so while I have income statistics, allow me to create a connection. Figure 4 comes from the same Pew article as the other graphs.
Four out of every ten children under the age of 18 live in low-income households. It will be quite difficult to convince them to attend a four-year institution, as money is an issue. Approximately one in every ten children is in a high-income household. No problem; they have the money to go to college, but there will be lots of competition for these students given their income. The remaining five out of ten people are middle-class. It is a wide economic range, but as the number of children declines, universities must compete for a smaller pool of potential students. Colleges that realize this may find a way to distinguish themselves and survive. Colleges that believe nothing has changed are in trouble.
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Disagreeing and using comments
I'd rather know the truth and understand the world than always be right. I'm not writing to upset or antagonize anyone on purpose, though I guess that could happen. I welcome dissent and disagreement in the comments. We all should be forced to articulate our viewpoints and change our minds when we need to, but we should also know that we can respectfully disagree and move on. So, if you think something said is wrong or misrepresented, then please share your viewpoint in the comments.