Is the White Working Class anti-Immigrant?
Our research for Wall Street’s War on Workers has uncovered compelling evidence that challenges stereotypical views about how working people view divisive social issues.
The dominant media narrative suggests that the white working class has grown increasingly illiberal on a wide range of social issues including race, gender, and immigration. Pundits, including many progressives, often claim, or assume, that these racist, homophobic, xenophobic white workers form the dreaded MAGA base that has welded the Republican Party to far right-wing positions on social issues.
Today’s newsletter examines a key survey question concerning undocumented immigrants. It comes from the Cooperative Election Study which has 524,713 respondents overall. (In 2010, 16,450 white working-class respondents were asked the question below. In 2020, there were 19,846 respondents.)
“Grant legal status to all illegal immigrants who have held jobs and paid taxes for at least 3 years and have not been convicted of felony crimes.”
In 2010, 32.1 percent were in favor.
What would you guess was the percentage in favor as of 2020, four years into the Trump presidency?
15 percent?
20 percent?
40 percent?
60 percent?
The exact answer is 61.8 percent!
According to this mammoth survey, (many times more respondents than any pre-election poll we see in the media) the white working class is more than twice as likely now to support granting legal status to undocumented immigrants.
How is it possible for the media of all stripes to get this so wrong? Or did we blow it?
Wall Street’s War on Workers dives into these questions and many more concerning how working people perceive social issues and the economy, including how confident we can be about survey results and our statistical analysis.
Our basic claim is this: The number one reason why working people have been abandoning the Democrats over the last 25 years is the failure of the party to address mass layoffs. We estimate that during that time over 30 million working people have experienced layoffs involving 50 or more people. These are life-shattering experiences for working people, especially in rural areas.
Our goal is to get this story out. It’s time to stop blaming working people for positions they do not hold. And it’s time to understand just how Wall Street is financially engineering layoff after layoff.
You can help spread the word by pre-ordering the book. Please click here.
(All royalties from the book go to the Labor Institute’s Political Economy for Workers programs. The same goes for contributions from those who are supporting this newsletter.)
Many thanks.
Les Leopold
Hi John,
I do understand your theory. The question is how do we turn it into a verifiable hypothesis? What data might prove or disprove your theory. Our book tries to do that with the mass layoff hypothesis. In a few days I'll put out a newsletter that illustrates more of the reasoning behind the claim. Hopefully, when (if) you read the book, you'll see we've amassed quite a bit of data to support our claims. Thanks for your comment. Les
There's about a 10 percent male/female difference in the survey results, with the women being more supportive of the legalization position. Our crack statistical team (of one!) says it will take time to crank out the exact numbers. Thanks for the question and many thx for your support