The Solutions: Blueprints for Action

The Essential Prerequisite: Adopt a Sensible Definition of the Working Class—and Stick to It

Progress will be slow, however, if reformers don’t begin with—and adhere to—a sensible definition of who counts as a member of the working class.

There are many definitions of the working class in use today that are not suitable as a basis for meaningful reform efforts. If we define the working class to mean people employed in manual labor, service industry, clerical, and informal-sector jobs (for more on this, see the FAQ section), it is true that working-class people are sharply numerically underrepresented and that their absence has real consequences for our democracy. If, however, we define the working class in other ways, this is no longer true. Pundits often characterize all Americans without college degrees as “working class,” for instance, but there is no credible evidence that the shortage of people without college degrees in our elected institutions has a meaningful impact on our democracy.32 Scores of wealthy professionals in the United States don’t have college degrees; if an organization supported these kinds of candidates, they could claim to increase “working-class” representation while actually increasing the share of wealthy professionals in our political institutions.

Likewise, reformers sometimes stretch the definition of working-class jobs to include adjacent occupations like nursing, teaching, and policing. These are all worthy occupations, but in the United States, these jobs provide a great deal more security and stability than most working-class jobs. (They are usually stable, salaried positions with benefits, although of course in many places these kinds of jobs often deserve better compensation.) More importantly, people who hold these kinds of jobs are not numerically underrepresented in elected office. Increasing the share of nurses, teachers, and police officers in office might actually reduce the representation of people from working-class jobs.

Many reformers—especially those in political parties and interest groups—will be tempted to classify favored candidates from white-collar professions as “working class,” essentially tinkering with the definition of the term to match a favored candidate’s current occupation. Reformers must resist the temptation to shoot first and then draw the target where their arrow has landed. Changing the definition of working class is no substitute for changing the system.

Researchers who study working-class representation have generally defined working-class jobs as those that do not pay well; do not require more schooling than the minimum compulsory formal education in a society; do not require prior wealth, capital, or privately owned equipment; are less prestigious; expose employees to more abuse, exploitation, and physical danger; and offer less job security. Our FAQ section outlines a more detailed definition of working-class jobs that can be used by any organization as a starting point for a fixed definition.

If organizations claim to support working-class candidates, funders and activists should hold them accountable to this definition or to some other clear benchmark that is based in actual research on the numerical representation of workers and the effects on the quality of democracy, not ad hoc decisions made in the interest of fitting popular narratives or counting particular individuals.

A Blueprint for Organizations: Political Parties, Unions, and Interest Groups

Qualified working-class Americans are less likely to be encouraged to run for office by party leaders, civic organizations, and interest groups. Those groups could easily change that, especially at the state and local levels, which tend to be the starting points for most candidates who go on to hold national office. Some have already started.

1. Institutionalize partnerships focused on recruiting and supporting candidates and politicians from working-class jobs. Historically, working-class people have held office in the highest numbers when organizations that support workers—typically labor unions—have formed institutional partnerships with political parties for the purpose of supporting working-class candidates.33 This configuration seems to be the key to significant gains in working-class representation around the world. Of course, every country and electoral context is different, and partnerships like these inevitably develop context-specific programs to elect more workers. But if one broad type of intervention has empirical support, it is this: Unions or interest groups that represent working-class people should create institutionalized partnerships with political parties that include formal mechanisms for recruiting and supporting working-class candidates.

What else can organizations do? With or without partnerships like these, political parties, interest groups, and labor unions have many tools for addressing the obstacles that keep working-class people out of office.

2. Recruit working-class candidates. Interest groups, unions, and political parties should create candidate training programs that identify, recruit, train, and support people who have working-class jobs as they consider and launch bids for elected office. Programs like these have a strong (if limited) track record in the United States. Unions in Nevada, Oregon, and Maine have recently run programs to recruit workers, and the Working Families Party in New York has had success with a pipeline program for working-class people. The oldest such program is probably the New Jersey AFL-CIO Labor Candidate School, which has existed for almost three decades and boasts a 78 percent win rate for graduates of its signature candidate school.34 Organizations that do not focus exclusively on workers can also develop programs that recruit working-class people. Advance Native Political Leadership, for instance, supports Native American candidates, many of whom come from working-class jobs. Other groups that serve specific populations can likewise create programs that encourage working-class members of those populations to run for office.
3. Create seed money programs for workers. The most successful candidate recruitment programs also provide seed money, early campaign donations intended to help candidates raise even more later on. With seed money, candidates can hire the staff needed to support continued fundraising and other basic campaign operations. Early money is also an important signal of candidate viability, and candidates who raise large sums early on are more likely to attract donors and media coverage and deter challengers.35 Perhaps most importantly, fundraising is the reason many candidates decide that running is not for them; targeted early money support can keep more working-class Americans in the candidate pipeline at this crucial stage. There is ample precedent for this approach; when it was founded, the organization EMILY’s List raised money year-round, then recruited and trained pro-choice women and offered them substantial seed money. Interest groups, unions, and political parties should create and support similar seed-money programs for working-class candidates.
4. Offer targeted political scholarships or fellowships. Workers find it hard to run for office and pay the bills. Organizations should create targeted programs that provide funds to cover the basic cost of living for working-class candidates while they run for office. This can be done through political scholarships or, where those are not permitted, through fellowship programs that provide working-class candidates with salaries in exchange for research or other political work that still leaves ample time for campaign activities.
5. Collect and publicize information about candidate occupational backgrounds. An easy way to raise awareness about the lack of occupational diversity in our political institutions is to document it locally. Organizations can create voter guides that include information about individual candidate occupations and about the occupational makeup of the candidate pool as a whole. These kinds of reports can help dramatize the shortage of politicians from working-class jobs.36
6. Reserve seats on organizational leadership committees for working-class people. Just as the shortage of workers in elected office affects how political institutions behave, the shortage of workers in leadership positions in political parties, unions, interest groups, and other civil-society organizations can limit how well those groups understand and respond to the challenges that working-class Americans face.37 Political parties and advocacy organizations should create formal rules that ensure that key leadership positions include at least some people from working-class occupations.
7. Think short- and long-term. Whatever strategies organizations adopt, they should consider both short- and long-term time horizons. In the short term, candidates often find local and nonpartisan races like school boards easier to run in. These kinds of elections can be training grounds for future races. Once elected, candidates will also need ongoing support in the form of advice, guidance, and help as they consider running again or running for higher office.

Of course, these kinds of interventions will only work if they create a meaningful pipeline of working-class candidates. Some reformers may be tempted to stretch the definition of working class to include favored candidates. A second potential pitfall is the temptation to select only “the cream of the crop,” people in working-class jobs who seem the most like existing white-collar candidates. Research suggests that working-class people are well-qualified to run for and hold office; organizations would do well to remember that training, support, and empowerment should be offered broadly to workers. Real pipeline work will involve convincing workers who are estranged from the political process that people in power truly care about their views, not just promoting the workers who are already interested in running for office. The goal is not to co-opt a small subset of well-positioned workers but to create meaningful pathways for large numbers of working-class people.
 

A Blueprint for Politicians: Reform Campaign Finance Regulations to Help Candidates Pay the Bills, and Create Your Own Pipeline of Working-Class Talent

Workers in the United States rarely run for elected office, in part because they simply cannot afford to take time away from work and they worry about returning to their jobs afterward. Many candidates are unable to pay themselves a salary or use their campaign funds to cover personal and family expenses while campaigning. Others are unaware of federal rules allowing candidates to pay themselves reasonable and limited salaries from campaign funds and to petition the Federal Election Commission to cover child- and elder-care expenses.

8. Reduce restrictions on pay. Policymakers should make it easier for candidates to pay for their personal expenses using campaign funds. As one recent report argues, “The federal government should pass legislation that would allow candidates to use campaign money for clearly defined and limited personal expenses, such as childcare and housing (with sufficient restrictions to prevent fraud and misuse).” State and local governments should follow suit.38
9. Offer a cost-of-living stipend for candidates. Governments could also offer cost-of-living stipends to candidates, with simple means tests and adequate safeguards to prevent abuse.

Candidates who campaign in good faith should also have some assurance that they can return to work afterward, regardless of the outcome of the election. Just as we grant jurors the right to return to their jobs after a trial ends, candidates should have the right to return to work after election day.

10. Ensure a right to return to work. Lawmakers should require businesses to permit employees reasonable leave to run for and hold public office, with an assurance that they can return to their jobs after campaigning and/or serving their communities (again, with sufficient restrictions to prevent fraud and abuse). In the name of ensuring equal access, some states require businesses to permit employees to take unpaid time off from work to vote on election day; businesses should be required to do the same for the rare employees who run for elected office.
     

A Blueprint for Structural Reform: Adding Institutions That Are Inclusive by Design

Finally, reformers should also consider more significant changes to institutional structures to ensure that working-class people are well-represented by design. Some of these may require amendments to state or federal constitutions, but creating institutions that are inclusive by design will ensure that workers have a seat at the table for generations to come.

11. Create and empower citizen advisory committees. Local governments regularly turn to citizen advisory boards, deliberative bodies that are open to participation by any citizen or are made up of randomly selected citizens. These groups are often organized around a particular issue (like the fifteen-member Historical Affairs and Landmark Review Board in Arlington, Virginia), but they can easily be adapted to focus on broader topics or to provide accountability and feedback to elected officials on a regular basis.39 In Lisbon, Portugal, for instance, when the city council is elected, a government agency selects a random group of citizens to form a “citizen assembly” that meets for facilitated sessions to discuss general issues facing the city.40 Like other random processes (for example, jury duty), advisory programs like these tend to attract a more economically diverse group of citizens than the mix of people who run for elected office. Of course, open calls for citizen input often tend to favor the kinds of citizens who already participate at high rates, who tend to be disproportionately well-off. However, citizen advisory committees can easily be designed to be demographically representative on numerous dimensions, either through reserved seats or by using stratified random selection to choose participants. Well-constructed citizen advisory councils can also be expensive to administer—the best approaches will provide trained facilitators and compensate participants for their service. But compared to the scope of government activities in a given locality or the expenses associated with the operation of elected institutions (such as the facilities and staff that support state legislators or members of Congress), the expenses associated with inclusive institutions will often be manageable and reasonable.
12. Shorten campaigns. By law, campaigns in Japan only last about two weeks. This significantly reduces the personal burdens associated with campaigning, while still allowing time for voters to learn about the candidates on their ballots. In the United States, working-class people are more likely to hold office at the state and local levels, where running for office is less burdensome. Shorter campaigns at all levels of government would likely make running for office more feasible for people from working-class jobs.
13. Reserve seats for working-class people. Most democracies guarantee that women will hold at least 30 percent of the seats in the national legislature, either by designating that certain seats can only be held by women or by requiring parties to run slates of candidates that include at least 30 percent women. The United States is one of the only exceptions in the world.41 Even so, the idea is worth considering. City councils, state legislatures, or even the U.S. Congress could adopt reserved seat policies that would ensure that working-class representation meets some minimal threshold.
     

A Blueprint for Researchers: Support Evaluation Throughout the Reform Process

14. Build in evaluation. We currently know more about why we have a shortage of working-class people in elected office than we know about how to address the shortage. This is partly a result of inaction; with so few programs to elect working-class people, we have had few opportunities to measure their impacts. Going forward, interventions designed to increase worker representation should be implemented cautiously, with ample allowance for pilot periods and well-designed impact evaluations, including randomized controlled trials whenever possible. Implementing organizations should partner with researchers to rigorously evaluate which programs succeed at increasing worker representation and which do not.

The United States is long overdue to reckon with the near-total exclusion of working-class people from our elected institutions. The blueprints above represent the best evidence-based approaches to the problem. They are worth pursuing. Electing more working-class Americans will better align our country with its democratic values, restore the faith of cynical and disaffected citizens, and ensure that working-class Americans take their rightful seat at the table in our political institutions.