Working-Class Candidates Shut Out of Political Office

A Jacobin review by Jared Abbott reports that about 2% of legislators across the world’s democracies held a working-class job before entering politics. That’s despite about seven in 10 jobs in a typical democracy being working-class jobs. The review examines how campaign demands and party gatekeeping limit working-class representation in elected office.

The Representation Gap

The review discusses Nicholas Carnes and Noam Lupu’s book Keeping Workers Off the Ballot: How Democracy Undermines Working-Class Representation. The authors define working-class jobs as manual, service or clerical work. Their database covered legislators in 97 democracies from 2016–18.

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. In Brazil, workers represented more than 70% of the labor force but only 8% of candidates for the national legislature.

The authors found that politicians with working-class job histories backed more pro-worker economic legislation. Cabinets with more working-class ministers built more generous welfare states. Citizens trusted legislatures less when fewer workers served in them. The review quotes the book: “when workers don't hold office, economic policies and outcomes are better for the haves and worse for the have-nots.”

Barriers to Running

Carnes and Lupu argue that campaigns demand time, money and income security, while party gatekeeping makes it harder for working-class candidates to run. 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, 12% of promising working-class respondents said political elites had encouraged them to run. The figure for comparable professionals was 34%.

The review also describes findings on public campaign financing, union density and inequality, while challenging the book’s conclusions. It argues that combinations of factors and organized labor can increase working-class representation.

Organized Routes Into Office

Historical examples in the review include Britain’s Labour Party, where more than a quarter of the House of Commons had previously held working-class jobs by 1929. The 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 also cites the New Jersey AFL-CIO candidate program, which had nearly 1,400 election victories since 1997.

Proposals discussed in the review include 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 argues that workers need organized power in workplaces and communities to gain political influence. The review’s figures describe a persistent disparity between workers’ share of employment and their presence among candidates and legislators.