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Democrats (and liberals in general) are overwhelmingly urban (red/blue county maps are basically population density maps), especially living in major cities. B

Democrats (and liberals in general) are overwhelmingly urban (red/blue county maps are basically population density maps), especially living in major cities. But it is also true that democratic party affiliation is higher than republican party affiliation amongst the poorest[0]. I wonder which is the larger contributor there: is it income or geography that most drives the poor towards liberalism? I don't really want to engage with your claim re: abandoning the working class, as I fully endorse the mindset that breaking the rail worker strike was anti-worker. But concurrently, the change of regulation that eventually led to the rail worker strike was a Republican/conservative policy. I will say that very few on the Democrat/liberal side talk openly about e.g. falling birth rates as an economic problem for the adoption industry, so I'm inclined to say that the condescending liberal elites are still better at pretending the poors are actual people who can hear what's said about them. 0. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/09/26/161841771/how-income-divides-democrats-republicans-and-independents https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/09/26/161841771/how-...

nathan_compton 3y ago
I feel quite strongly that workers are still weakly affiliated with democrats because there is literally no other politically credible force in american politics that even pretends to care about workers.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> But it is also true that democratic party affiliation is higher than republican party affiliation amongst the poorest[0] That graph defines "low income" as less than $20,000/year, but 75% of the people who make less than $20,000 also make less than $15,000, i.e. less than minimum wage. This implies that it's less people who make low wages and more people who don't have full-time employment. Moreover, one of the largest populations of people who typically don't have full-time employment are... college students. This is also affected by the age distribution between the parties (older people tend to be Republicans and to make more money than they did when younger). It would be much more interesting to see the graph organized by lifetime earnings at a given age.
- petsfed 3y ago
  I'm not sure such data even exists. I think it would certainly explore it though. My experience working minimum wage was that it was impressively difficult to break $15k, because the employers were hostile to the concept of consistent enough scheduling to allow a second job. I was doing 25 hours a week retail (any higher and they owed me benefits), and when I tried to adjust my availabilty to support a 2nd job, my first job cut my hours, so I was still only working 25 total hours a week (but I was spending twice as much time commuting). Anecdotally, that's pretty common. Incidentally, if you work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, your pre-tax income at federal minimum wage is $15,080. 31 of the 50 states have higher (frequently considerably higher) minimum wages. So its worth wondering what fraction of the population is in that "low income" group? Perhaps a better question would be "how does party affiliation relate to the federal 'very low income' status?" There's a strong geographic element to 'very low income', and the local minimum wage factors into that. For instance, in the San Francisco Bay area (where many hackernews readers live and work), there's a more than $20k difference between what's 'very low income' in Solano ($47.7k) county and Marin ($71.6k). You'll notice that both of those are well outside what the graph says is low income. But in terms of buying power, they're poorer than folks in rural Alabama.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > My experience working minimum wage was that it was impressively difficult to break $15k, because the employers were hostile to the concept of consistent enough scheduling to allow a second job. I was doing 25 hours a week retail (any higher and they owed me benefits), and when I tried to adjust my availabilty to support a 2nd job, my first job cut my hours, so I was still only working 25 total hours a week (but I was spending twice as much time commuting). Anecdotally, that's pretty common. Ironically this is what you get from "labor protections" from politicians. The employer would be happy to give you more hours instead of paying the same amount to two people who each work half as many hours. That's lower training and hiring costs for them. But paying one person the same amount they're paying two is illegal, so they do the second one and you get screwed into two commutes. Then if you're working part time twice, both employers want you to be there during the busiest part of the day but you can't be in two places at once. You can avoid this by working two different kinds of jobs so the busiest periods don't overlap, but now you're forced into another inconvenience (you may like one type of work better) solely because you can't even offer to work for one employer for the same hours and compensation you get from two. > Incidentally, if you work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, your pre-tax income at federal minimum wage is $15,080. 31 of the 50 states have higher (frequently considerably higher) minimum wages. Right, so the percentage of people in the under-$20,000 group who don't have full time employment is even higher than 75%. > Perhaps a better question would be "how does party affiliation relate to the federal 'very low income' status?" The interesting question is the party affiliation of people who actually work for low wages, so you need something that excludes the people who have low "income" only because they're students or are living off of daddy's money. Probably wants to be something like, party affiliation of people at exactly the 20th percentile income level for the region, or say the 15%-25% range, instead of "below 20%" which includes all the people who have low income because they don't have or need a full time job.

nathan_compton 3y ago

I feel quite strongly that workers are still weakly affiliated with democrats because there is literally no other politically credible force in american politics that even pretends to care about workers.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> But it is also true that democratic party affiliation is higher than republican party affiliation amongst the poorest[0] That graph defines "low income" as less than $20,000/year, but 75% of the people who make less than $20,000 also make less than $15,000, i.e. less than minimum wage. This implies that it's less people who make low wages and more people who don't have full-time employment. Moreover, one of the largest populations of people who typically don't have full-time employment are... college students. This is also affected by the age distribution between the parties (older people tend to be Republicans and to make more money than they did when younger). It would be much more interesting to see the graph organized by lifetime earnings at a given age.

petsfed 3y ago
I'm not sure such data even exists. I think it would certainly explore it though. My experience working minimum wage was that it was impressively difficult to break $15k, because the employers were hostile to the concept of consistent enough scheduling to allow a second job. I was doing 25 hours a week retail (any higher and they owed me benefits), and when I tried to adjust my availabilty to support a 2nd job, my first job cut my hours, so I was still only working 25 total hours a week (but I was spending twice as much time commuting). Anecdotally, that's pretty common. Incidentally, if you work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, your pre-tax income at federal minimum wage is $15,080. 31 of the 50 states have higher (frequently considerably higher) minimum wages. So its worth wondering what fraction of the population is in that "low income" group? Perhaps a better question would be "how does party affiliation relate to the federal 'very low income' status?" There's a strong geographic element to 'very low income', and the local minimum wage factors into that. For instance, in the San Francisco Bay area (where many hackernews readers live and work), there's a more than $20k difference between what's 'very low income' in Solano ($47.7k) county and Marin ($71.6k). You'll notice that both of those are well outside what the graph says is low income. But in terms of buying power, they're poorer than folks in rural Alabama.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > My experience working minimum wage was that it was impressively difficult to break $15k, because the employers were hostile to the concept of consistent enough scheduling to allow a second job. I was doing 25 hours a week retail (any higher and they owed me benefits), and when I tried to adjust my availabilty to support a 2nd job, my first job cut my hours, so I was still only working 25 total hours a week (but I was spending twice as much time commuting). Anecdotally, that's pretty common. Ironically this is what you get from "labor protections" from politicians. The employer would be happy to give you more hours instead of paying the same amount to two people who each work half as many hours. That's lower training and hiring costs for them. But paying one person the same amount they're paying two is illegal, so they do the second one and you get screwed into two commutes. Then if you're working part time twice, both employers want you to be there during the busiest part of the day but you can't be in two places at once. You can avoid this by working two different kinds of jobs so the busiest periods don't overlap, but now you're forced into another inconvenience (you may like one type of work better) solely because you can't even offer to work for one employer for the same hours and compensation you get from two. > Incidentally, if you work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, your pre-tax income at federal minimum wage is $15,080. 31 of the 50 states have higher (frequently considerably higher) minimum wages. Right, so the percentage of people in the under-$20,000 group who don't have full time employment is even higher than 75%. > Perhaps a better question would be "how does party affiliation relate to the federal 'very low income' status?" The interesting question is the party affiliation of people who actually work for low wages, so you need something that excludes the people who have low "income" only because they're students or are living off of daddy's money. Probably wants to be something like, party affiliation of people at exactly the 20th percentile income level for the region, or say the 15%-25% range, instead of "below 20%" which includes all the people who have low income because they don't have or need a full time job.