The Forgotten Majority: Two Decades Later

            Sometimes, cleaning house can have unforeseen benefits. The other day, we were cleaning out an old drawer to make room for new junk.  Among the old photos and other memorabilia, we found a copy of the June 2000 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.  I took a close look and could find no particular reason why I saved the issue.  But then I found a surprise: one of the featured articles was “America’s Forgotten Majority” by Joel Rogers and Ruy Teixeira.  In 2000, Rogers was a professor of sociology, law and political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Teixeira was a senior fellow at the Century Foundation.  The article itself was excerpted from a book they were about to release, America’s Forgotten Majority: Why the White Working Class Still Matters.  So here we are, almost two decades later.  What might they have to say about the electorate as we look toward the 2020 election?

            They begin the article by reviewing the common understanding of the American majority that emerged in the 1990s—the idea that American voters were dominated by “soccer moms,” “wired workers,” and suburban married couples—or, as The New York Timesreported in a 1999 article, “affluent independent voters and high-technology employees who work miles from any city.”  Rogers and Teixeira argued that this stereotype missed the mark.  Instead, they noted that more than 75% of American voters lack four-year college degrees, that more than 70% do not hold professional or managerial jobs, and that “the median income of American households is actually quite modest.”  They noted the popular idea that the white working class had, in fact, become “politically irrelevant.”  But they offered a different take on the data, that “the white working class is alive and well in American politics today.”

            What had changed by 1999, however, was how that majority saw itself.  Rogers and Teixeira noted that the members of this majority tended not to be working in factories or other traditional blue-collar jobs.  Instead, they saw themselves as “middle class” voters who, while they did not benefit from policy changes in the 1960-1980s, nevertheless made up 55% of the total voting population.  As Rogers and Teixeira noted, they were also working to overcome some old stereotypes:

·     The majority had at least a high school diploma and 40% had some post-secondary education.

·     They earned a “moderate income”—most on the low side of what was considered “middle class.”

·     They tended to hold low-level white-collar and service jobs, rather than unskilled blue-collar jobs.

·     They were increasingly unlikely to work in factories.

·     They lived in and, in fact, dominated the suburbs.

“In sum,” they wrote, “the white working class remains numerically dominant, even if its form has changed.”

            Rogers and Teixeira argued that “the core values of the forgotten majority must be reunited with their economic experience.”  They suggested the following policy agenda to attract them:

·     Universal access to health care.

·     Adequate retirement income.

·     Access to quality education at all levels—elementary, secondary, college, and beyond.

·     Access to effective job training for people who need to change jobs to keep up in a changing economy.

·     The right to a decent wage and the right to speak out and organize.

·     A work schedule that allows time for family.

·     Access to affordable, quality child care.

·     Government investment to ensure continued economic growth.

The authors noted that “Republicans and Democrats will have different ideas about how to use government to achieve these goals.  But each party must try to achieve them if it means to build a durable majority.  The insecurities of the new economy cannot be remedied without effort; the need to confront them politically is inescapable.”  They closed by calling for both political parties to embrace “the forgotten majority” in order to “revive active, strong government and build a twenty-first century prosperity that includes all Americans.”

That was two decades ago.  

In the intervening years, several things have happened:

·     The “Great Recession” put a squeeze on savings and retirement income for Boomer members of the Forgotten Majority.

·     The cost of higher education grew, requiring many students to carry significant debt as they begin their careers.

·     The first web browser was launched in the early 1990s.  It has since transformed personal and business communications, creating a major impact on how we work and how we conceive “community.”

·     Manufacturing and other industries have become increasingly globalized, creating a global supply chain that is having an increasing impact on manufacturing jobs.

·     The combination of online communications and globalization has created a new work environment, allowing employers to call upon global expertise and allowing many to work from home. 

·     Social, economic, and political change, increasingly complicated by the impact of climate change, have contributed to a global migration of people in search of physical safety and economic and social security for their families.

This leads me to ask: Is the eight-item policy agenda that Rogers and Teixeira outlined in 2000 still relevant?  My view is that all eight elements of the platform issues are still with us.   Progress has been made on some, but none have been totally resolved.  Three of the eight are currently hot topics as we look to the 2020 election:

·     Universal Access to Health Care:  The Affordable Care Act was a major step toward universal access.  As the 2020 election approaches “Medicare for All” has been proposed.  Clearly, though, the country still has work to do before all citizens have equal access to health care.

·     Retirement Income:  Social Security has been under attack for several years.  Clearly, though, the majority of voters would support protecting their retirement investment in Social Security.  Regulation of private insurance plans remains an issue.

·     Education: There has been an increasing demand for open access to postsecondary education—a “K-14” system—to better prepare young people for work in the new, technology-driven environment.  New York, for instance, recently passed legislation allowing resident high school graduates to attend the first two years of college tuition-free at selected public institutions.  Several candidates are also calling for adjustments to the national student loan system in order to relieve young adults from the burden of long-term student debt.

In many ways, the three generations that constitute the Forgotten Majority two decades down the road are shaping a new world.  They have the unenviable chore of trying to keep pace with technological change while building a social structure for a new world. This contributes to a backlash that has only grown over the past 19 years and that is increasingly defined by domestic terrorism, religious intolerance, and hatred of minorities and immigrants.  It is not a question of becoming “great again.”  We cannot go back.  We must instead work together to build a new social structure for the world that was born out of the post-war push for internationalism and technological revolution. The policy agenda that Rogers and Teixeira gave us two decades ago can still guide us as we look around for political wisdom and look forward.