Over the past 30 years the US economy has grown.
At the same time, middle class incomes have stayed flat.
I found a really great breakdown and analysis of earnings trends at this website. It's interesting to note that the sources here are not political sources or think tanks. This is the US census and a couple of investment advisers that have aggregated and charted the census data.
At the same time, there has been considerable growth in the income of middle class women, and some minorities.
The majority of middle class men have not been realizing these gains. Additionally, many recent college grads are not experiencing these gains. Link to wikipedia on income
There is a significant body of research on happiness that points to the concept that an individual's sense of happiness is a function of how they feel they compare to their self-described set of peers. When a person looks around at their friends they do a natural, precognitive comparison that establishes happiness on a sliding scale. In the case of the economy, the rule is similar. White men are still better off than most ethnographic groups in the US, but when they measure themselves based on growth, they feel left behind (they are left behind in growth).
Lastly, I'll leave this article on the slide of the American Middle class from the NYT.
Now I will make a logically unsubstantiated leap here and posit that a vast majority of Donald Trumps supports are accurately described by the above economic picture. I believe that Trump's base is built on the frustrations of white men (and those who are close to them and care about them) who have legitimate economic grievances regarding their individual situation.
It is really a shame that Trump is their mouthpiece, however, because his root cause analysis is deeply flawed. I don't think there are any credible economists out there who would blame illegal immigration for the trends I identified above. Certainly there are no economists who would blame ISIS or gay rights or a woman's right to freedom from sexual assault or any of Trump's other defining positions.
The shame here is that he a) provides an unproductive distraction to the people who are getting screwed. They're now getting screwed by him, too. b) His angry rhetoric is producing a dangerous death spiral in the form of a reactionary populist echo chamber. c) the result is that everybody who has been experiencing the gains in the economy assumes that those who are left behind are just racist crackpots. The whole argument becomes illegitimate.
Ironically, the result is very similar to what you see with Black Lives Matter. White men are not the subject of negative implicit bias and therefore are not systematically and consistently exposed to negative (and often lethal) encounters with the Police can't wrap their heads around the problem. They look at the movement, find the worst in it, see some looters or rioters and decide the whole thing is bullshit. Same story, different disenfranchised and marginalized set of experiences.
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| from http://data.worldbank.org/ |
 |
| from: http://www.advisorperspectives.com/ |
I found a really great breakdown and analysis of earnings trends at this website. It's interesting to note that the sources here are not political sources or think tanks. This is the US census and a couple of investment advisers that have aggregated and charted the census data.
At the same time, there has been considerable growth in the income of middle class women, and some minorities.
 |
| http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2013/ted_20131104.htm |
The majority of middle class men have not been realizing these gains. Additionally, many recent college grads are not experiencing these gains. Link to wikipedia on income
There is a significant body of research on happiness that points to the concept that an individual's sense of happiness is a function of how they feel they compare to their self-described set of peers. When a person looks around at their friends they do a natural, precognitive comparison that establishes happiness on a sliding scale. In the case of the economy, the rule is similar. White men are still better off than most ethnographic groups in the US, but when they measure themselves based on growth, they feel left behind (they are left behind in growth).
Lastly, I'll leave this article on the slide of the American Middle class from the NYT.
Now I will make a logically unsubstantiated leap here and posit that a vast majority of Donald Trumps supports are accurately described by the above economic picture. I believe that Trump's base is built on the frustrations of white men (and those who are close to them and care about them) who have legitimate economic grievances regarding their individual situation.
It is really a shame that Trump is their mouthpiece, however, because his root cause analysis is deeply flawed. I don't think there are any credible economists out there who would blame illegal immigration for the trends I identified above. Certainly there are no economists who would blame ISIS or gay rights or a woman's right to freedom from sexual assault or any of Trump's other defining positions.
The shame here is that he a) provides an unproductive distraction to the people who are getting screwed. They're now getting screwed by him, too. b) His angry rhetoric is producing a dangerous death spiral in the form of a reactionary populist echo chamber. c) the result is that everybody who has been experiencing the gains in the economy assumes that those who are left behind are just racist crackpots. The whole argument becomes illegitimate.
Ironically, the result is very similar to what you see with Black Lives Matter. White men are not the subject of negative implicit bias and therefore are not systematically and consistently exposed to negative (and often lethal) encounters with the Police can't wrap their heads around the problem. They look at the movement, find the worst in it, see some looters or rioters and decide the whole thing is bullshit. Same story, different disenfranchised and marginalized set of experiences.
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