Is the white working class responsible for Trump?

Political journalists and academic scholars alike have continued to discuss the role of the white working class in the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Yet a close look at statistical evidence suggests that this discussion may be politically motivated.

Let us begin with a discussion about the income of white Trump voters in the 2016 presidential election. The median household income of a Trump voter based on census bureau data is about $72,000, which is above the national household median income of about $56,000. Looking to the American National Election Studies data from November 2016,  we can further analyze who voted for Trump among different income levels.

First let us examine statistical results of only the white voters. Among white voters without a college education, Trump secured a greater percentage of votes for all income levels. Among white, college educated voters, Clinton secured more votes than Trump (and by a vast majority in the top 20% of income).

Next we turn to results for all respondents regardless of race. Among all college educated voters, Clinton surpassed votes for Trump modestly. Among all voters without a college education, those in the lower 80% of income gave Clinton more votes than Trump by narrow margins. However, the top 20% income group voted in favor of Trump by only a slight margin.

This data suggests that the election of Trump was not a result of the white working class, but a result of all economic class levels of white voters who do not have a college level education (see data analysis here), and a good number who do.

I feel this requires liberal media and all those who are frustrated with the election of Trump to recognize the factors that are at work here. The definition of white working class is still fuzzy and may take on several forms. For example, if we use a definition of the white working class as all white people who do not have a college education, which many have suggested before me, than the data does prove that the white working class elected Trump. However, I would not only look to lacking college education when describing the white working class, but also some level of blue collar, labor type working status in occupation. If such criteria is used, the white working class did not elect Trump, rather white voters of all types elected him. Furthermore, in this respect, not more than half of the white working class even voted. We might say that the white working class is more likely to abstain than to vote for Trump. But, then, they tend to abstain generally. 

Looking then to economic classes, we start to see a different story. For example, the American National Election reports that nearly sixty percent of white Trump supporters without college degrees are in the top half of the income distribution. In fact one in five Trump voters without a college degree live in households where income exceeds $100,000. Duke University Professor Nicholas Carnes and Vanderbilt University professor Noam Lupu wrote in their recent article (here) that media often refers to the education gap as poor people rushing to vote for Trump. In reality, many of the people without college degrees who voted for Trump were from middle and high income households. They refer to this as the basic problem when using education to measure the working class. The short of it is, blue collar workers are the ones perceived when discussing the white working class, but in the story of the 2016 election, they are not the reality. 

If we agree that Trump supporters came from all sections of the white American voter pool, the discussion of white working class among politicians becomes a tool of division. Republican's have used classism to divide and conquer opponents for many years. Here we have a party that deny's climate change, has systematically rolled back protections for workers, rolled back welfare programs and healthcare programs, and then can lead all of the liberals to hate the white working class instead of economic classes similar to their own. It becomes much easier to win over the white, not college educated population when they are being downtrodden by those on the other side (see the first three paragraphs of Joan C. Williams article here). I suggest a refocussing by politicians on the economic woes of the lower economic quartiles as a start to getting back to what the American voter is looking for. A champion of wage growth, job creation, education and healthcare support.