New Report: Working-Class Social and Economic Attitudes

The Editors

A new study from the Center for Working‑Class Politics and Jacobin reveals where working-class voters stand on key issues and how they differ from wealthier Americans. The message is clear: economic populism must be the core of progressive appeals to workers.

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Construction workers working on a project in Boulder, Colorado, on June 20, 2025. (Mark Makela / Getty Images)


The Democrats’ working-class problem is not going away. In fact, it’s only getting worse — expanding beyond Donald Trump’s base of working-class whites to now include working-class Latinos and even a significant share of black men.

Debates rage about how the Left can win back these workers. Influential pollster and Democratic consultant David Shor and the prominent liberal think tank Third Way have argued that the working class is simply more culturally and economically conservative than other voters. They advocate that the party ought to pivot to the center to appeal to them. With this in mind, liberal journalists like Jonathan Chait have argued that progressive economic populism offers no real electoral benefit for Democrats.

Yet others counter that while the working class may hold more conservative views on a variety of sociocultural issues, they do not hold more conservative economic views. These advocates argue that economic populism is key to winning back working-class support.

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