Workers Rarely Hold Office as Leaders Shape Power

About 2% of legislators in the world’s democracies had held working-class jobs before entering politics, a review of research on who reaches public office found. Working-class people held about seven in 10 jobs in a typical democracy. That gap shows who gets a path to political authority—and who remains largely outside it.

Who Reaches Office

In the United States, working-class people made up more than half the labor force, yet just 5% of candidates for state, county and local office. In Brazil, workers accounted for more than 70% of the labor force but only 8% of candidates for the national legislature. Jared Abbott discussed those figures in a Jacobin review of Nicholas Carnes and Noam Lupu’s book, Keeping Workers Off the Ballot: How Democracy Undermines Working-Class Representation.

The researchers assembled a database of legislators in 97 democracies, covering 2016–18. They counted manual, service and clerical work as working-class jobs. Their findings connected job history with policy: politicians who’d held working-class jobs backed more pro-worker economic legislation, while cabinets with more working-class ministers built more generous welfare states. The review quoted the book: “when workers don't hold office, economic policies and outcomes are better for the haves and worse for the have-nots.”

The authors argued that campaigns demand time, money and secure income, while party gatekeeping narrows the route to candidacy. In surveys in Mexico and Canada, 29% of high-potential working-class respondents worried about giving up a job or income to run, compared with 14% of similarly qualified professionals. Across surveys in 10 democracies in the Americas, political elites had encouraged 12% of promising working-class respondents to run, against 34% of comparable professionals.

Routes Around the Barriers

Abbott’s review challenged the book’s conclusions. It argued that combinations of factors and organized labor could lift working-class representation. The review pointed to Britain’s Labour Party, where more than a quarter of the House of Commons had held 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 review said the New Jersey AFL-CIO candidate program had won nearly 1,400 elections since 1997. Its proposals included 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. Abbott argued that workers need organized power in workplaces and communities to gain political influence.

Authority Inside the Workplace

Covista CEO Steve Beard has appointed four chiefs of staff in five years, turning the role into a rotation through finance, strategy, technology and management consulting. His first three appointees moved into senior positions: one became a CFO at one of Covista’s universities, another became 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.

A 2024 McKinsey report put median chief-of-staff tenure at 2.3 years. Beard said that was about the tenure he considered appropriate. “It takes about one year to really get in a groove,” he said. “By the time you're approaching three years, that's a pretty grueling pace.” He said he works from around 7 a.m. until after 6 p.m. on most weekdays, and his chief of staff reviews priorities with him each morning. One aide told him he talked too much in leadership meetings. Beard said he started listening more before weighing in.

A Wall Street Journal account described father and daughter Caroline Chirichella entering a business partnership. He said he was 74 and had worked alongside thousands of people during the 62 years since his first job. Chirichella was a millennial and exactly half his age. He said she trusted her gut, while he was more deliberate, analytical and systematic.

Another Journal article said workers may avoid asking colleagues for help because they fear imposing, expect rejection or find the request awkward. Examples included accepting a meeting time instead of asking to move it back 15 minutes, and assuming a deadline can’t change without checking. Separately, the Journal reported that PepsiCo’s stock was about a third below its 2023 peak and traded at its steepest discount to Coca-Cola in more than 25 years. Investors once valued the company for dependable brands, reliable earnings growth and steady returns; the article said they wanted bold solutions as the company fell behind.