Working-Class Candidates Shut Out of Political Power

About 2% of legislators across the world’s democracies had worked a working-class job before entering politics, even though roughly seven in 10 jobs in a typical democracy were working-class, according to a Jacobin review of Nicholas Carnes and Noam Lupu’s book Keeping Workers Off the Ballot: How Democracy Undermines Working-Class Representation. The authors put the imbalance plainly: “when workers don't hold office, economic policies and outcomes are better for the haves and worse for the have-nots.”

Who Gets Through the Gate

In the United States, working-class people made up more than half the labor force but just 5% of candidates for state, county and local office, the review said. In Brazil, workers accounted for more than 70% of the labor force but only 8% of candidates for the national legislature.

Campaign demands for time, money and income security, along with party gatekeeping, helped explain the gap. In surveys in Mexico and Canada, 29% of high-potential working-class respondents worried they’d have to give up a job or income to run. Among similarly qualified professionals, 14% had the same concern.

Political elites also urged professionals to run more often. Across surveys in 10 democracies in the Americas, 12% of promising working-class respondents said political elites had encouraged them to run, compared with 34% of comparable professionals.

The researchers built an original database of legislators in 97 democracies from 2016–18. Their findings linked politicians’ working-class job histories with more pro-worker economic legislation. Cabinets with more working-class ministers built more generous welfare states. And citizens trusted legislatures less when fewer workers served in them.

The review also challenged the book’s conclusions, arguing that combinations of factors and organized labor could raise working-class representation. Britain’s Labour Party had more than a quarter of the House of Commons’ members from working-class jobs by 1929. That share rose above a quarter by 1945, stayed around 15% to 20% through the 1970s and remained above 10% until the 1990s. In Germany, about 16% of the Bundestag came from working-class jobs in 1969.

The Cost of Getting In

The review cited the New Jersey AFL-CIO candidate program, which had nearly 1,400 election victories since 1997. It also laid out possible routes into office: candidate pipeline programs, political scholarships to replace lost wages, seed money, a right to return to a job after campaigning, worker committees within parties, worker quotas and citizens’ assemblies.

Austria’s 2022 Citizens’ Climate Assembly included college graduates at roughly the same rate as the public. Ireland’s citizens’ assembly came before the 2018 referendum that repealed the country’s abortion ban. Those examples sit beside the review’s account of the barriers workers face when campaigns demand resources and parties control access to candidacies.

The review’s argument doesn’t end with election rules. Jared Abbott argued that workers need organized power in workplaces and communities to gain political influence. The proposed electoral pathways accompany that call for collective organization; they aren’t a substitute for it.

Power Inside the Workplace

Covista CEO Steve Beard has appointed four chiefs of staff in five years, using the position as a leadership rotation. His first hire specialized in finance, the second in strategy, the third in technology and the fourth, who started recently, in management consulting. “Each of my chiefs of staff has looked different because I've been in a different place in my own journey at the time that they've come on board,” Beard said. “It really is defined by the leader and the moment.”

A 2024 McKinsey report put the median chief-of-staff tenure at 2.3 years. Beard said that was about the tenure he considered appropriate, describing the pace as grueling as workers approach three years in the role. His former chiefs moved into senior positions at Covista: one became a CFO at one of its universities, another a vice president overseeing business-to-business operations and clinical partnerships, and the third was preparing to become a vice president of enterprise pricing.

Beard oversees five educational institutions that train students for health-care careers. He said he usually works from around 7 a.m. until after 6 p.m. on most weekdays. His chief of staff reviews priorities with him in a 15-minute morning meeting. Beard wants the adviser to give honest feedback about how he deals with his executive team, clients, investors and others. After his first chief of staff told him he talked too much in leadership meetings, Beard said he began holding back. “I found that I actually learned more by listening to the conversation amongst the team,” he said.

Other workplace accounts describe small negotiations people often avoid. They include asking to move a meeting back 15 minutes, checking whether a deadline can change, or directly asking another team member for help. A Wall Street Journal account said workers may stay silent because they fear imposing, expect rejection or find the request awkward.

A separate Journal account described a 74-year-old father starting a business partnership with his daughter, Caroline Chirichella, who was exactly half his age. He said she trusted her gut while he was more deliberate, analytical and systematic. The Journal also reported that PepsiCo’s stock was down about a third from its 2023 peak and traded at its steepest discount to Coca-Cola in more than 25 years, as investors sought bold solutions. Across politics and workplaces, these accounts show who gets access to decision-making—and who has to ask for a hearing.